nced the arrival to my wife, a
flush struggled to her cheek, and a radiance to her eye. 'Ha! you
think,' said I in my communings, 'that Frank is to be present with you
in his works, and that through them you may be in his presence. So you
shall, but they shall become only an annoyance and a weariness,--for
themselves and for him.'

The statues and pictures were brought to the house and unpacked. My wife
was almost tremulous with eagerness to behold them. I had taken care,
however, to have a number of acquaintances present,--some of genuine
artistic taste, some of only pretensions, and others utterly ignorant.
As the various works were displayed, my artistic friends, as in courtesy
bound, and as their merit really deserved, duly eulogized them, and the
praises were echoed by the rest. Finally we came to a box which
contained a label marked 'The statue of Hope Downcast.' 'Aha! master
Frank,' thought I, 'so I have you at last.' I could see my wife
quivering with the contest of feeling,--between her annoyance at the
presence of visitors, and the necessity of controlling herself and
uniting in their commendations.

'Hope Downcast' was raised to the perpendicular, and proved to be a
beautiful life-size statue, representing a female figure standing on a
rock, in a most dejected attitude, one foot unsandaled, her raiment
torn, her hair loose, the fillet which confined it lying parted at her
feet, the star upon the fillet deprived of some of its points, and the
ordinary emblem of Hope, the anchor, broken at her side. The
applicability of the conception to the history of Frank and my wife, I
readily understood. My guests broke out into raptures, in which I
joined, and, by continual appeals to my wife, constrained her to do the
same. I also took the opportunity of inquiring the name of the artist,
and requested my wife to express to him the entire satisfaction he had
given in the execution of his commission.

The ordeal closed, but was renewed and repeated day after day, till all
the poetry and romance connected with our artistic acquisitions was
thoroughly destroyed in my wife's mind. They became, as I could easily
observe, positively odious to her, and, doubtless, could she have obeyed
the promptings of her feelings, she would have trampled on them, and
cast them into the street.

But in this disappointment she became so forlorn, so passively
desperate, that my heart almost burst at beholding her.

Since my discovery in th