“And you no glad one, Clifford. That song, which almost prompts me to dance, makes no impression on you! By-the-way, your wife used to sing so well, and now I never hear her. That d---d painting, if you don't mind, will make her give up everything else! As for Bill Edgerton, he cares for nothing else out his varnish, trees, and umber-hills, and streaky water. You shouldn't let him fill your wife's mind with this oil-and-varnish spirit--giving up the piano, the guitar, and that sweeter instrument than all, her own voice. D--n the paintings!--his long talk on the subject almost makes me sick of everything like a picture. I now look upon a beautiful landscape like this as a thing that is shortly to be desecrated--taken in vain--scratched out of shape and proportion upon a deal-board, and colored after such a fashion as never before was seen in the natural world, upon, or under, or about this solid earth. D--n the pictures, I say again!--but, for God's sake, Clifford, don't let your wife give up the music! Make her play, even if she don't like it. She likes the painting best, but I wouldn't allow it! A wife is a sort of person that we set to do those things that we wish done and can't do for ourselves. That's my definition of a wife. Now, if I were in your place, with my present love for music and dislike of pictures, I'd put her at the piano, and put the paint-saucers, and the oil, and the smutted canvass, out of the window; and then--unless he came to his senses like other people--I'd thrust Bill Edgerton out after them! I'd never let the best friend in the world spoil my wife.” The effect of this random chatter of my good-natured friend upon my mind may well be imagined. It was fortunate that he was quite too much occupied in what he was saying to note my annoyance. In vain, anxious to be let off, was I restrained in utterance--cold, unpliable. The good fellow took for granted that it was an act of friendship to try to amuse; and thus, yearning with a nameless discontent and apprehension to get home I was marched to and fro along the river-bank, from one scene to another--he, meanwhile, utterly heedless of time, and as actively bent on perpetual motion as if his sinews were of steel and his flesh iron. Meanwhile, the guitar ceased, and the song in the cottage of Miss Davison; the lights went out in that and all the other dwellings in sight; the moon waned; and it was not till the clock from a distant steeple tolled out the hour of eleven with startling solemnity, that Kingsley exclaimed:-- “Well, mon ami, we have had a ramble, and I trust I have somewhat dissipated your gloomy fit. And now to bed--what say you?--with what appetite we may!” With what appetite, indeed! We separated. I rushed homeward, the moment he was out of sight--once more stood before my own dwelling. There the lights remained unextinguished and William Edgerton was still a tenant of my parlor! CHAPTER XXII. SELF-HUMILIATION.