and murmurs of
affection had blessed her through the day! Happy young wife! these are
thy halcyon days. Care has not thrown upon thee a single shadow from
his gloomy wing, and hope pictures the smiling future with a sky of
sunny brightness.

"How long he stays away!" had just passed her lips, when the sound of
well-known footsteps was heard in the passage below. A brief time, and
then the room-door opened, and Edward Claire came in. What a depth of
tenderness was in his voice as he bent his lips to those of his young
wife, murmuring--

"My Edith!" and then touching, with a gentler pressure, the white
forehead of his sleeping babe.

"You were late this evening, dear," said Edith, looking into the face
of her husband, whose eyes drooped under her earnest gaze.

"Yes," he replied, with a slight evasion in his tone and manner; "we
have been busier than usual to-day."

As he spoke the young wife arose, and taking her slumbering child into
the adjoining chamber, laid it gently in its crib. Then returning, she
made the tea--the kettle stood boiling by the grate--and in a little
while they sat down to their evening meal.

Edith soon observed that her husband was more thoughtful and less
talkative than usual. She asked, however, no direct question touching
this change; but regarded what he did say with closer attention,
hoping to draw a correct inference, without seeming to notice his
altered mood.

"Mr. Jasper's business is increasing?" she said, somewhat
interrogatively, while they still sat at the table, an expression of
her husband's leading to this remark.

"Yes, increasing very rapidly," replied Claire, with animation. "The
fact is, he is going to get rich. Do you know that his profit on
to-day's sales amounted to fifty dollars?"

"So much?" said Edith, yet in a tone that showed no surprise or
particular interest in the matter.

"Fifty dollars a day," resumed Claire, "counting three hundred
week-days in the year, gives the handsome sum of fifteen thousand
dollars in the year. I'd be satisfied with as much in five years."

There was more feeling in the tone of his voice than he had meant to
betray. His young wife lifted her eyes to his face, and looked at him
with a wonder she could not conceal.

"Contentment, dear," said she, in a gentle, subdued, yet tender voice,
"is great gain. We have enough, and more than enough, to make us
happy. Natural riches have no power to fill the heart's most yearning
affectio