great, that neither did Ellen want to be
elevated, nor did Ernest want to elevate her. He was very fond of her,
and very kind to her; they had interests which they could serve in
common; they had antecedents with a good part of which each was familiar;
they had each of them excellent tempers, and this was enough. Ellen did
not seem jealous at Ernest's preferring to sit the greater part of his
time after the day's work was done in the first floor front where I
occasionally visited him. She might have come and sat with him if she
had liked, but, somehow or other, she generally found enough to occupy
her down below. She had the tact also to encourage him to go out of an
evening whenever he had a mind, without in the least caring that he
should take her too--and this suited Ernest very well. He was, I should
say, much happier in his married life than people generally are.

At first it had been very painful to him to meet any of his old friends,
as he sometimes accidentally did, but this soon passed; either they cut
him, or he cut them; it was not nice being cut for the first time or two,
but after that, it became rather pleasant than not, and when he began to
see that he was going ahead, he cared very little what people might say
about his antecedents. The ordeal is a painful one, but if a man's moral
and intellectual constitution are naturally sound, there is nothing which
will give him so much strength of character as having been well cut.

It was easy for him to keep his expenditure down, for his tastes were not
luxurious. He liked theatres, outings into the country on a Sunday, and
tobacco, but he did not care for much else, except writing and music. As
for the usual run of concerts, he hated them. He worshipped Handel; he
liked Offenbach, and the airs that went about the streets, but he cared
for nothing between these two extremes. Music, therefore, cost him
little. As for theatres, I got him and Ellen as many orders as they
liked, so these cost them nothing. The Sunday outings were a small item;
for a shilling or two he could get a return ticket to some place far
enough out of town to give him a good walk and a thorough change for the
day. Ellen went with him the first few times, but she said she found it
too much for her, there were a few of her old friends whom she should
sometimes like to see, and they and he, she said, would not hit it off
perhaps too well, so it would be better for him to go alone. T