that house to assist the young wife with
her experience, and to be welcome--not to interfere every minute, and
tease her; she loves her daughter-in-law almost as much as she does her
son, and she is happy because he bids fair to be an immortal painter,
and, above all, a gentleman; and she, a wifely wife, a motherly mother,
and, above all, a lady.

This, then, is a happy couple. Their life is full of purpose and
industry, yet lightened by gayety; they go to operas, theaters and
balls, for they are young. They have plenty of society, real society,
not the ill-assorted collection of a predetermined number of bodies,
that blindly assumes that name, but the rich communication of various
and fertile minds; they very, very seldom consent to squat four mortal
hours on one chair (like old hares stiffening in their hot forms), and
nibbling, sipping and twaddling in four mortal hours what could have
been eaten, drunken and said in thirty-five minutes. They are both
artists at heart, and it shocks their natures to see folks mix so very
largely the _inutile_ with the _insipidum,_ and waste, at one huge but
barren incubation, the soul, and the stomach, and the irrevocable hours,
things with which so much is to be done. But they have many desirable
acquaintances, and not a few friends; the latter are mostly lovers of
truth in their several departments, and in all things. Among them are
painters, sculptors, engineers, writers, conversers, thinkers; these
acknowledging, even in England, other gods besides the intestines, meet
often _chez_ Gatty, chiefly for mental intercourse; a cup of tea with
such is found, by experience, to be better than a stalled elk where
chit-chat reigns over the prostrate hours.

This, then, is a happy couple; the very pigeons and the crows need
not blush for the nest at Kensington Gravel-pits. There the divine
institution Marriage takes its natural colors, and it is at once
pleasant and good to catch such glimpses of Heaven's design, and sad to
think how often this great boon, accorded by God to man and woman,
must have been abused and perverted, ere it could have sunk to be the
standing butt of farce-writers, and the theme of weekly punsters.

In this pair we see the wonders a male and female can do for each other
in the sweet bond of holy wedlock. In that blessed relation alone two
interests are really one, and two hearts lie safe at anchor side by
side.

Christie and Charles are friends--for they are man