"Clifford not at home?" said Edgerton one evening as he entered,

addressing my wife, and looking indifferently around the room. "I

wished to tell him about some pictures which are to be seen at ----'s

room--really a lovely Guido--an infant Savior--and something, said

to be by Carlo Dolce, though I doubt. You must see them. Shall I

call for you tomorrow morning?"

"I thank you, but have an engagement for the morning."

"Well, the next day. They will remain but a few days longer in the

city."

"I am sorry, but I shall not be able to go even the next day, I am

so busy."

"Busy? ah! that reminds me to ask if you have given up the pencil

altogether? Have you wholly abandoned the studio? I never see you

now at work in the morning. I had no thought that you had so much

of the fashionable taste for morning calls, shopping, and the like."

"Nor have I," was the quiet answer. "I seldom leave home in the

morning."

"Indeed!" with some doubtfulness of countenance, almost amounting

to chagrin--"indeed! how is it that I so seldom see you, then?"

"The cares of a household, I suppose, might be my sufficient excuse.

While my liege lord works abroad, I find my duties sufficiently

urgent to task all my time at home."

"Really--but you do not propose to abandon the atelier entirely?

Clifford himself, with his great fondness for the art, will scarcely

be satisfied that you should, even on a pretence of work."

"I do not know. I do not think that MY HUSBAND"--the last two words

certainly emphasized--"cares much about it. I suspect that music

and painting, however much they delighted and employed our girlhood,

form but a very insignificant part of our duties and enjoyments

when we get married."

"But you do not mean to say that a fine landscape, or an exquisite

head, gives you less satisfaction than before your marriage?"

"I confess they do. Life is a very different thing before and after

marriage. It seems far more serious--it appears to me a possession

now, and time a sort of property which has to be economized and

doled out almost as cautiously as money. I have not touched a brush

this fortnight. I doubt if I have been in the painting-room more

than once in all this time."

This conversation, which evidently discomfited William Elgerton, was

productive to me of no small satisfaction. After a brief interval,

consumed in silence, he resumed it:-"But I must certainly get you to see these pictures. Nay, I must

also--since you keep at home--persuade you to look into the studio

tomorrow, if it be only to flatter my vanity by looking at a sketch

which I have amused myself upon the last three mornings. By-the-way,

why may we not look at it tonight?"




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