live,--but I find my independence sometimes kicking up its
heels, till I hate it myself.

From this you will perceive that I have not had a success
in Lombard Street. I was quite willing to answer your
uncle any questions he could ask about money. Indeed,
I had no secret from him on any subject. But when he
subjected me to cross-examination, forcing me into a
bathos of poverty, as he thought, I broke down. "Not five
hundred a-year!" "Not four!!" "Not three!!!" "Oh, heavens!
and you propose to take a wife!" You will understand how I
writhed and wriggled under the scorn.

And then there came something worse than this,--or rather,
if I remember rightly, the worst thing came first. You
were over in my studio, and will remember, perhaps,
some of my own abortive treasures, those melancholy but
soul-inspiring creations of which I have thought so much,
and others have thought so little? That no one else should
value them is natural, but to me it seems unnatural,
almost cruel, that any one should tell me to my face that
they were valueless. Your uncle, of course, had never seen
them, but he knew that sculptors are generally burdened
with these "wares," as he called them; and he suggested
that I should sell them by auction for what they might
fetch,--in order that the corners which they occupy might
be vacant. He thought that, perhaps, they might do for
country gentlemen to stick about among their shrubs.
You, knowing my foolish soreness on the subject, will
understand how well I must have been prepared by this to
endure your uncle's cross-examination.

Then he asked me as to my ideas,--not art ideas, but ideas
as to bread and cheese for the future. I told him as
exactly as I could. I explained to him that if you were
left in possession of a comfortable home, such as would
have been that of your father, I should think it best for
your sake to delay our marriage till I should be prepared
to do something better for you than I can at present;
but that I hold myself ready to give you all that I have
to give at a moment's notice, should you be required to
leave his house. And, Lucy, speaking in your name, I said
something further, and declared my belief that you, for
my sake, would bear the inconveniences of so poor a home
without complaining.

Then there arose anger both on his side and on mine; and I