"I have no doubt he is amiable--he is amiable--but that is not

enough for a man. He must be something more than amiable, if he

would escape the imputation of being feeble--something more if he

would be anything!"

Julia looked at me with eyes of profound and dilating astonishment.

Having got thus far, it was easy to advance. The first step is half

the journey in all such cases.

"William Edgerton is a little too amiable, perhaps, for his own

good. It makes him listless and worthless. He will do nothing at

pictures, wasting his time only when he should be at his business."

"But did I not understand you, Edward, that he was a man of fortune,

and independent of his profession?" she answered timidly.

"Even that will not justify a man in becoming a trifler. No man

should waste his time in painting, unless he makes a trade of it."

"But his leisure, Edward," suggested Julia, with a look of increasing

timidity.

"His leisure, indeed, Julia;--but he has been here all day--day

after day. If painting is such a passion with him, let him abandon

law and take to it. But he should not pursue one art while processing

another. It is as if a man hankered after that which he yet lacked

the courage to challenge and pursue openly.' "I don't think you love pictures as you used to, Edward," she

remarked to me, after a little interval passed in unusual silence.

"Perhaps it is because I have matters of more consequence to

attend to. YOU seem sufficiently devoted to them now to excuse my

indifference."

"Surely, dear Edward, something I have done vexes you. Tell me,

husband. Do not spare me. Say, in what have I offended?"

I had not the courage to be ingenuous. Ah! if I had!

"Nay, you have not offended," I answered hastily--"I am only worried

with some unmanageable thoughts. The law, you know, is full of

provoking, exciting, irritating necessities."

She looked at ne with a kind but searching glance. My soul seemed

to shrink from that scrutiny. My eyes sunk beneath her gaze.

"I wish I knew how to console you, Edward: to make you entirely

happy. I pray for it, Edward. I thought we were always to be

so happy. Did you not promise me that you would always leave your

cares at your office--that our cottage should be sacred to love

and peace only?"

She put her arms about my neck, and looked into my face with such

a sweet, strange, persuasive smile--half mirth, half sadness--that

the evil spirit was subdued within me. I clasped her fervently in

my embrace, with all my old feelings of confidence and joy renewed.

At this moment the servant announced Mr. Edgerton, and with

a start--a movement--scarcely as gentle as it should have been, I

put the fond and still beloved woman from my embrace!




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