It will not need that I should dwell farther on these topics. It will be sufficient to show that, in worldly respects, I was as likely to prosper in my new as in my past abode. In social respects I had still more reason to be gratified. The days went by with me as smoothly as with Thalaba. My wife was all that I could wish. She was the very Julia whom I had married. Nay, she was something more--something better. Her health improved, and with it her spirits. She evidently had no regrets. A sigh never escaped her. Her content and cheerfulness were wonderful. She had none of that vague, vain yearning which the feeble feel, called “home-sickness.” She convinced me that I was her home--the only home that she desired. It was evident that she thought less of our ancient city than I did myself. I am sure that if either of us, at any moment, felt a desire to look upon it again, the person was myself. I maintained a correspondence with the place--received the newspapers, groped over them with persevering industry--nay--missed not the advertisements, and was disappointed and a discontent on those days when the mail failed. My wife had no such appetite. She sometimes read the papers, but she appeared to have no curiosity; and, with the exception of an occasional letter which she received from her mother, she had no intercourse whatever with her former home. All this was calculated to satisfy me. But this was not all. If gentleness, sweetness, cheerfulness, and a sleepless consideration of one's wants and feelings, could convince any mortal of the love of another--I must have been satisfied. We resumed most of the habits which began with our marriage, but which had been so long discontinued. We rose with the sun, and went abroad after his example. Like him we rose to the hill-tops, and then descended into the valleys. We grew familiar with the deepest shades of wood and forest while the dewdrops were yet beading the bosoms of the wild flowers; and we followed the meandering course of the Alabama, long before the smoking steamer vexed it with her flashing paddles. My professional toils from breakfast to dinner-time--for this interval I studiously gave to my office, even if I had little to do there--occasioned the only interregnum which I knew in the positive pleasures which I enjoyed. In the afternoon our enjoyments were renewed. Our cottage was so sweetly secluded, that we did not need to go far in order to find the Elysian grove which we desired. At the top of our hill we were surrounded by a natural temple of proud pines--guarding the spot from any but that sort of devine and religious light which streams through the painted windows of the ancient cathedral. The gay glances of the sun came gliding through the foliage in drops, and lay upon the grass in little pale, fanciful gleams, most like eyes of fairies peeping upward from its velvety tufts. Here we read together from the poets--sometimes Julia sung, even while sketching. Not unfrequently, Mrs.