“But did I not understand you, Edward, that he was a man of fortune, and independent of his profession?” she answered timidly. “Even that will not justify a man in becoming a trifler. No man should waste his time in painting, unless he makes a trade of it.” “But his leisure, Edward,” suggested Julia, with a look of increasing timidity. “His leisure, indeed, Julia;--but he has been here all day--day after day. If painting is such a passion with him, let him abandon law and take to it. But he should not pursue one art while processing another. It is as if a man hankered after that which he yet lacked the courage to challenge and pursue openly.' “I don't think you love pictures as you used to, Edward,” she remarked to me, after a little interval passed in unusual silence. “Perhaps it is because I have matters of more consequence to attend to. YOU seem sufficiently devoted to them now to excuse my indifference.” “Surely, dear Edward, something I have done vexes you. Tell me, husband. Do not spare me. Say, in what have I offended?” I had not the courage to be ingenuous. Ah! if I had! “Nay, you have not offended,” I answered hastily--“I am only worried with some unmanageable thoughts. The law, you know, is full of provoking, exciting, irritating necessities.” She looked at ne with a kind but searching glance. My soul seemed to shrink from that scrutiny. My eyes sunk beneath her gaze. “I wish I knew how to console you, Edward: to make you entirely happy. I pray for it, Edward. I thought we were always to be so happy. Did you not promise me that you would always leave your cares at your office--that our cottage should be sacred to love and peace only?” She put her arms about my neck, and looked into my face with such a sweet, strange, persuasive smile--half mirth, half sadness--that the evil spirit was subdued within me. I clasped her fervently in my embrace, with all my old feelings of confidence and joy renewed. At this moment the servant announced Mr. Edgerton, and with a start--a movement--scarcely as gentle as it should have been, I put the fond and still beloved woman from my embrace! CHAPTER XXI. CHANGES OF HOME.