clever to get it. You see--she does appreciate you, and you always
treat her so distantly."

"Do I?" said Stuart, quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Will you have your portrait painted in it?" asked the Picture.

"In what?"

"In the gown. You are not listening," said the Picture, reproachfully.
"You ought to. Aunt Lucy says it's a beautiful shade of red silk, and
very long. Is it?"

"I don't know," said Stuart. He shook his head, and dropping his chin
into his hands, stared coldly down into the fire. He tried to persuade
himself that he had been vainglorious, and that he had given too much
weight to the honor which the University of Oxford would bestow upon
him; that he had taken the degree too seriously, and that the
Picture's view of it was the view of the rest of the world. But he
could not convince himself that he was entirely at fault.

"Is it too late to begin on Guizot?" suggested his Picture, as an
alternative to his plan. "It sounds so improving."

"Yes, it is much too late," answered Stuart, decidedly. "Besides, I
don't want to be improved. I want to be amused, or inspired, or
scolded. The chief good of friends is that they do one of these three
things, and a wife should do all three."

"Which shall I do?" asked the Picture, smiling good-humoredly.

Stuart looked at the beautiful face and at the reclining figure of the
woman to whom he was to turn for sympathy for the rest of his life,
and felt a cold shiver of terror, that passed as quickly as it came.
He reached out his hand and placed it on the arm of the chair where
his wife's hand should have been, and patted the place kindly. He
would shut his eyes to everything but that she was good and sweet and
his wife. Whatever else she lacked that her beauty had covered up and
hidden, and the want of which had Iain unsuspected in their previous
formal intercourse, could not be mended now. He would settle his step
to hers, and eliminate all those interests from his life which were
not hers as well. He had chosen a beautiful idol, and not a companion,
for a wife. He had tried to warm his hands at the fire of a diamond.

Stuart's eyes closed wearily as though to shut out the memories of the
past, or the foreknowledge of what the future was sure to be. His head
sank forward on his breast, and with his hand shading his eyes, he
looked beyond, through the dying fire, into the succeeding years.

* * * * *

The gay little French clock on the ta