It may be supposed that my mood underwent precious little improvement

after this communication. Dark conceits, darker than ever, came

across my mind. I longed to get away, and return to that home from

which I had banished confidence!--ah, only too happy if there still

lingered hope! But my friend, blunt, good-humored, and thoughtless

creature as he was, took for granted that I had come to look at

the landscape, to admire water-views by moonlight, and drink fresh

draughts of sea-breeze from the southwest; and, thrusting his arm

through mine, he dragged me on, down, almost to the threshold of

the cottage, whence still issued the tinkle, tinkle, of the guitar

which had first driven me away.

"That girl sings well. Do you know her--Miss Davison? She's soon

to be married, THEY say (d--n 'they say,' however--the greatest

scandal-monger, if not mischief-maker and liar, in the world!)--she

is soon to be married to young Trescott--a clover lad who sniffles,

plays on the flute, wears whisker and imperial on the most cream-colored

and effeminate face you ever saw! A good fellow, nevertheless, but

a silly! She is a good fellow, too, rather the cleverest of the

twain, and perhaps the oldest. The match, if match it really is to

be, none of the wisest for that very reason. The damsel, now-a-days,

who marries a lad younger than herself, is laying up a large stock

of pother, which is to bother her when she becomes thirty--for even

young ladies, you know, after forty, may become thirty. A sort of

dispensation of nature. She sings well, nevertheless."

I said something--it matters not what. Dark images of home were in

my eyes. I heard no song--saw no landscape The voice of Kingsley

was a sort of buzzing in my ears.

"You are dull to-night, but that song ought to soothe you. What a

cheery, light-hearted wench it is! Her voice does seem so to rise

in air, shaking its wings, and crying tira-la! tira-la! with an

enthusiasm which is catching! I almost feel prompted to kick up my

heels, throw a summerset, and, while turning on my axis, give her

an echo of tira-la! tira-la! tira-la! after her own fashion."

"You are certainly a happy, mad fellow, Kingsley!" was my faint,

cheerless commentary upon a gayety of heart which I could not share,

and the unreserved expression of which, at that moment, only vexed

me.

"And you no glad one, Clifford. That song, which almost prompts me

to dance, makes no impression on you! By-the-way, your wife used

to sing so well, and now I never hear her. That d---d painting,

if you don't mind, will make her give up everything else! As for

Bill Edgerton, he cares for nothing else out his varnish, trees,

and umber-hills, and streaky water. You shouldn't let him fill

your wife's mind with this oil-and-varnish spirit--giving up the

piano, the guitar, and that sweeter instrument than all, her own

voice. D--n the paintings!--his long talk on the subject almost makes

me sick of everything like a picture. I now look upon a beautiful

landscape like this. as a thing that is shortly to be desecrated--taken

in vain--scratched out of shape and proportion upon a deal-board,

and colored after such a fashion as never before was seen in the

natural world, upon, or under, or about this solid earth. D--n the

pictures, I say again!--but, for God's sake, Clifford, don't let

your wife give up the music! Make her play, even if she don't like

it. She likes the painting best, but I wouldn't allow it! A wife is

a sort of person that we set to do those things that we wish done

and can't do for ourselves. That's my definition of a wife. Now, if

I were in your place, with my present love for music and dislike

of pictures, I'd put her at the piano, and put the paint-saucers,

and the oil, and the smutted canvass, out of the window; and

then--unless he came to his senses like other people--I'd thrust

Bill Edgerton out after them! I'd never let the best friend in the

world spoil my wife."




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