s and enjoyments,
which is the true life. The rising doubt, whether the beloved one have
eyes to see what is beautiful to him in nature and art, may come with a
chill and a pang; the certain knowledge of her blindness must come with
a shock of pain. But when the shudder of the chill and the shock of the
pain are over, he finds himself in the place he used to occupy before a
fair face smiled down on him from all high places, or a soft voice
mingled with all harmonies to his entranced ear. He grows content in
time with his old solitary place in the study, or with striving upward
amid manly minds. When he returns to the quiet and comfort of his
well-arranged home, the face that smiles opposite to him is none the
less beautiful because it beams only for home pleasures and humble
household successes. The voice that coos and murmurs to his baby in the
cradle, that recounts as great events the little varieties of kitchen
and parlour life, that tells of visits made and received, with items of
harmless gossip gathered up and kept for his hearing, is none the less
dear to him now that it can discourse of nothing beyond. The tender
care that surrounds him with quiet and comfort in his hours of leisure,
in a little while contents him quite, and he ceases to remember that he
has cares and pains, aspirations and enjoyments, into which she can have
no part.

But this is a digression, and I daresay there are many who will not
agree with all this. Indeed, I am not sure that I quite agree with all
my friend said on this subject, myself. There are many ways of looking
at the same thing, and if all were said that might be said about it, it
would appear that an incapacity on the part of the wife to share, or at
least to sympathise with all the hopes, pursuits, and pleasures of her
husband, causes bitter pain to both; certainly, he who cannot assure
himself of the sympathy of the woman he loves, when he would pass beyond
the daily routine of domestic duties and pleasures, fails of obtaining
the highest kind of domestic happiness.

Charlie Millar's private announcement to his friend Harry of his brother
Arthur's engagement, was in these words:

"The efforts of the maternal Grove have been crowned with success. Your
brother is a captive soon to be chained--"

Charlie was right. His clear eye saw, that of which Arthur himself
remained in happy unconsciousness. And what Charlie saw other people
saw also, though why the wise lady s