, but after that there is a notable period of prosperity. Somewhere
around your thirty-eighth or thirty-ninth year there is some more
trouble--a little--but you will come out of that--that is, it looks as
though you would. Your stars show you to be of a nervous, imaginative
character, inclined to worry; and I see that your kidneys are weak. You
ought never to take much medicine. Your sign is inclined to that but it
is without benefit to you. You will be married twice, but I don't see
any children."

He rambled on dolefully and Eugene left in great gloom. So it was
written in the stars that he was to suffer a period of decline and there
was to be more trouble for him in the future. But he did see a period of
great success for him between his thirty-second and his thirty-eighth
years. That was some comfort. Who was the second woman he was to marry?
Was Angela going to die? He walked the streets this early December
afternoon, thinking, thinking.

The Blue family had heard a great deal of Eugene's success since Angela
had come to New York. There had never been a week but at least one
letter, and sometimes two, had gone the rounds of the various members of
the family. It was written to Marietta primarily, but Mrs. Blue, Jotham,
the boys and the several sisters all received it by turns. Thus the
whole regiment of Blue connections knew exactly how it was with Angela
and even better than it was; for although things had looked prosperous
enough, Angela had not stayed within the limits of bare fact in
describing her husband's success. She added atmosphere, not fictitious,
but the seeming glory which dwelt in her mind, until the various
connections of the Blue family, Marietta in particular, were convinced
that there was nothing but dignity and bliss in store for the wife of so
talented a man. The studio life which Angela had seen, here and in
Paris, the picturesque descriptions which came home from London and
Paris, the personalities of M. Charles, M. Arkquin, Isaac Wertheim,
Henry L. Tomlins, Luke Severas--all the celebrities whom they met, both
in New York and abroad, had been described at length. There was not a
dinner, a luncheon, a reception, a tea party, which was not pictured in
all its native colors and more. Eugene had become somewhat of a demi-god
to his Western connections. The quality of his art was never questioned.
It was only a little time now before he would be rich or at least
well-to-do.

All the relatives ho