urtyard, which he was certain of selling to a
picture-dealing friend. The first approach to happiness which he had
known for a long, long time past, was on the evening of that day, when
he went upstairs to sit with Lavinia; and, keeping secret his purpose
of the morning, made the sick woman smile in spite of her sufferings, by
asking her how she should like to have her room furnished, if she were
the lady of a great lord, instead of being only the wife of Valentine
Blyth.

Then came the happy day when the secret was revealed, and afterwards the
pleasant years when poor Mrs. Blyth's most splendid visions of luxury
were all gradually realized through her husband's exertions in his
profession. But for his wife's influence, Valentine would have been in
danger of abandoning high Art and Classical Landscape altogether, for
cheap portrait-painting, cheap copying, and cheap studies of Still Life.
But Mrs. Blyth, bedridden as she was, contrived to preserve all her old
influence over the labors of the Studio, and would ask for nothing
new, and receive nothing new, in her room, except on condition that her
husband was to paint at least one picture of High Art every year, for
the sake (as she proudly said) of "asserting his intellect and his
reputation in the eyes of the public." Accordingly, Mr. Blyth's time
was pretty equally divided between the production of great unsaleable
"compositions," which were always hung near the ceiling in the
Exhibition, and of small marketable commodities, which were as
invariably hung near the floor.

Valentine's average earnings from his art, though humble enough in
amount, amply sufficed to fulfill the affectionate purpose for which,
to the last farthing, they were rigorously set aside. "Lavvie's
Drawing-Room" (this was Mr. Blyth's name for his wife's bed-room) really
looked as bright and beautiful as any royal chamber in the universe. The
rarest flowers, the prettiest gardens under glass, bowls with gold and
silver fish in them, a small aviary of birds, an Aeolian harp to put on
the window-sill in summertime, some of Valentine's best drawings from
the old masters, prettily-framed proof-impressions of engravings done
by Mrs. Blyth's father, curtains and hangings of the tenderest color and
texture, inlaid tables, and delicately-carved book-cases, were among
the different objects of refinement and beauty which, in the course of
years, Mr. Blyth's industry had enabled him to accumulate for his
wife