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"Do you think such husbands possess the faculty of consi-deration! I don't agree with you, it appears to me that all their own consideration, all their faculty of independent thinking, has become weakened, if not destroyed, when they give up to the stupid prejudice that another man can better guide a woman than her own husband! "

Said another voice, "now they will call this poor woman noisy and excited, say it hurts her to have her friends visit her, because she cannot help crying and grieving about his leaving her; then they will put her down into a lower ward, where of course she will grow worse, and may become incurable. Yes, this is the way they do here; I wish the public knew it."

"My God!" echoed yet another hitherto silent voice, "it makes me shudder to think how many splendid minds are made incurable lunatics, or worried into a sickness "which ends in death, by just these barbarous means!"

At this stage of the colloquy, our attendant re-entered the hall. The conversation here ended, but our thoughts did not end. The stupid thoughtlessness with which a husband can commit to other hands, the wife of his bosom, when distracted or enfeebled in body or mind, is utterly unaccountable.

No one would trust a valuable horse to be stabled without knowing something of the treatment he would be likely to receive. Would you, farmers, commit one to strangers of whom you knew nothing beyond the fact that they are public stable-keepers? Would you send even a horse to a stable, and permit him to remain for months and even years without visiting, or at least sending some one to visit the animal? Would you not fear he might be cheated out of the proper quantity of oats or other food -- that he might be exposed to contagious diseases from other horses in his vicinity, or that in some way Ins value might he diminished? Would it be a safe experiment thus to commit even a horse to the mercy of for-tuitous influences? How is it then, that you give less care to your tender wife?

Did you tell her, when a lover, that you could not engage, in all future circumstances, to give her as much attention as your animals should receive?

Was it among your lover's vows, in your sacred moonlight rambles, that if she became insane, you would desert her -- that you would love and cherish her, and share her destiny "till death us do part," on condition that she would retain her youth and beauty unimpaired; but that, if these, or if health or reason should fail, you would consign her to some other man?

Oh, no, such was not your sacred vow!

What did you promise her?

I was not there listening under the hedgerow; I did not witness your sacred vows before marriage; I only witness how you fulfill them afterwards!"

CHAPTER L.
How to make Incurables.

"One day a patient received a letter from her aged mother, in which the latter entreated her to write, in these words:

"Let me know without delay, if you are alive. I hardly know if I have a daughter, it is so long since I have heard from you."

The daughter showed this letter to me, and with overflowing tears, besought me to use my influence with the Superintendent, that she might be permitted to answer this letter.

I told her I had no influence whatever with the Superintend-ent, but would try to procure the consent of Doctor Tenny to let her write.

I also exhorted her to he watchful over her own conduct, and try to control the occasional vagaries of her mind; in short, to use every possible endeavor to preserve her sanity and her patience.

She made the most commendable attempts to do this for several weeks, and my hopes were sanguine respecting her.

I first saw her in the Fifth ward. She was walking the hall, pale, haggard, hopeless, and constantly biting the ends of her fingers. Her dress was ragged, her hair uncombed, and her whole appearance indicated a mind on the verge of despair.

In this condition I first tried to open to her the avenues of hope. In the absence of our attendant, at stealthy conversa-tions, I discovered that she possessed excellent talents, was a good scholar, and had formerly moved in an elevated sphere of life.

She was the only daughter of a physician; had in early life married a man of wealth and ambition, with whom she had lived happily for several years, and who had loaded, her with comforts and luxuries. Subsequently, the tide of her fortune was reversed; misfortune came with swift and heavy shocks, upon her devoted head. Her affectionate father was laid in the grave. She lost her husband, to whom she was most tenderly attached, by the most terrible of all deaths, the death of his affections for herself.

Won by the fascinations of another, in an evil hour, he had deserted her forever, leaving three helpless babes upon her care, with no means of support. One by one these lovely children had all been laid in their graves, and the mother was left in the terrible loneliness of the heart's deepest desolation.

No wonder the energies of her mind at last gave way; that the haunting images of her heart's lost treasures were ever before her eyes. Her health sunk, she was unable longer to combat successfully the tide of her terrible calamities.