TRIALS.

CHAPTER I.

THOUGH separated only by the distance of a few miles, it had been one of the discomforts of Matilda's wedded life, that it had occasioned a great alteration in her intimacy with Mrs. St. Aubyn. The fact was, that Charles soon discovered the shrewdness of Catherine's observation; and too well knowing that his foibles were not of a kind to escape it, and not particularly relishing, as, in fact, few men did, the satire with which she mingled her quick re marks upon character, he gave but little encouragement to the intimacy which Matilda hoped to have maintained with her in the same degree after her marriage as before.

It was not without doing her utmost to remove it, that Matilda had observed his growing dislike to a friend so dear to her; but she soon found that the taste of a married woman, in her female associates, must of necessity be guided in a great measure by the choice of her husband. It is to no purpose, that she would retain about her, those she loves, unless