The Brother and the Wife.

His return to Tarquinia was hailed with delight by every member of his family but one. This was a younger brother, whose position had been greatly improved by the absence and supposed death of Coelius. He cursed in the bitterness of his heart the fate which had thus restored, as from the grave, the shadow which had darkened his own prospects; and though he concealed his mortification under the guise of a joy as lively as that of any other member of the household, he was torn with secret hate and the most fiendish jealousy. At first, however, as these feelings were quite aimless, he strove naturally to subdue them. There was no profitable object in their indulgence, and he was one of those, cunning beyond his years, who entertain no moods, and commit no crime, unless with the distinct hope of acquisition. It required but a little time, however, to ripen other feelings in his soul, by which the former were rather strengthened than diminished, and by which all his first, and, perhaps, feeble efforts to subdue them were rendered fruitless. In the first bitter mood in which he beheld the return of his brother, the deep disappointment which he felt, with the necessity of concealing his chagrin from every eye, prevented him from bestowing that attention upon the wife of Coelius which her beauty, had his thoughts been free, must inevitably have commanded. With his return to composure, however, he soon made the discovery of her charms, and learned to love them with a passion scarcely less warm than that which was felt by her husband. Hence followed a double motive for hating the latter, and denouncing his better fortune. Aruns—the name of the younger brother—was, like Coelius, a man of great talent and ingenuity; but his talent, informed rather by his passions than by his tastes, was addressed to much humbler objects. While the one was creative and gentle in his character, the other was violent and destructive; while the one worshiped beauty for its own sake, the other regarded it only as subserving selfish purposes. Coelius was frank and generous in his temper, Aruns reserved, suspicious and contracted. The one had no disguises, the other dwelt within them, even as a spider girdled by his web, and lying secret in the crevice at its bottom. Hitherto, his cunning had been chiefly exercised in concealing itself, in assuming the part of frankness, in appearing, so far as he might, the thing that he was not. It was now to be exercised for his more certain profit, in schemes hostile to the peace of others. To cloak these designs, he betrayed more than usual joy at the restoration of his brother. His, indeed, seemed the most elated spirit of the household, and the confiding and unsuspecting Coelius at once took him to his heart, with all the warmth and sincerity of boyhood. It gave him pleasure to perceive that Aurelia, his wife, received him as a brother, and regarded with delight the appearance of affection that subsisted between them. The three soon became more and more united in their sympathies and objects, and the devotion of Aruns to the Roman wife of Coelius was productive of a gratification to the latter, which he did not endeavor to conceal. It was grateful to him that his brother did not leave his wife to that solitude in her foreign home, which might sometimes have followed his own too intense devotion to the arts which he so passionately loved; and, without a fear that his faith might be misplaced, he left to Aruns the duty which no husband might prudently devolve upon any man, of ministering to those tastes and affections, the most delicate and sacred, which make of every family circle a temple in which the father, and the husband, and the master, should alone be the officiating priest.

Some time had passed in this manner, and at length it struck our Lucumo that there was less cordiality between his brother and his wife than had pleased him so much at first. Aurelia now no longer spoke of Aruns—his name never escaped her lips, unless when she was unavoidably forced to speak it in reply. His approaches to her were marked by a timidity not usual with him, and by a hauteur in her countenance which was shown to no other person. It was a proof of the superior love of Coelius to his wife that he reproached her for this seeming dislike. She baffled his inquiry, met his reproaches with renewed shows of tenderness, and the fond, confiding husband resumed his labors on the beautiful, with perhaps too little regard to what was going on around him. Meanwhile, the expression in the face of Aurelia had been gradually deepening into gravity. Care was clouding her brow, and an air of anxiety manifested itself upon her cheek—a look of apprehension—as if some danger were impending—some great fear threatening in her heart. This continued for some time, when she became conscious that the eye of her husband began to be fixed inquiringly upon her, and with the look of one dissatisfied, if not doubtful—disturbed if not suspicious—and with certain sensibilities rendered acute and watchful, which had been equally confiding and affectionate before. These signs increased her disquiet, and deepened her anxiety. But she was silent. The glances of her husband were full of appeal, but she gave them no response. She could but retire from his presence, and sigh to herself in solitude. There was evidently a mystery in this conduct, and the daily increasing anxieties of the husband betrayed his doubts that it might prove a humiliating one at the solution. But he, too, was silent. His pride forbade that he should declare himself, when he could only speak of vague surmises, and perhaps degrading suspicions. He was silent, but not at ease. His pleasant labors of the studio were abandoned. Was it for relief from his own thoughts that he was now so frequently in company with Aruns, or did he hope to obtain from the latter, any clue to the mystery which disturbed his household? It was not in the art of Aurelia so to mould the expression of her countenance, as to hide from others the anxiety which she felt in the increasing and secret communion of the brothers. She watched their departure with dread, and witnessed their return together with agitation. She saw, or fancied she saw, in the looks of the younger a malignant exultation, which even his habitual cunning did not suffer him entirely to conceal.

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