“And whose fortune, I wonder, buys these things?” said the passionate beauty, “you wouldn’t let me have the common comforts of life if you had your way.” “Pshaw! madam, none of your airs. But I tell you this extravagance I neither can nor will submit to.” “You’re a brute,” said the wife, “so you are. Do you—you think” she continued, bursting into tears, “I’d ever have married you, when I might have had so many better husbands, if I’d thought you’d have used me this way?” “Well, madam, so you’ve got up a scene,” coolly said the husband, “all I wish is, that you had married some one of your other suitors.” “You do—you insult me—I won’t live with you a day. Oh! that I should be abused in this way,” and the now really wretched woman burst into a fresh flood of tears. “As you please madam!” But we omit the rest of this scene, which ended with a fit of hysterics on the part of the wife, and a volley of curses on that of the husband. The difficulty was the next day made up between the newly married couple; but from that hour their altercations were frequent and bitter. Charles began to think as his old friend had told him, that there was a great difference betwixt marrying for love or for money. Three years passed. At the end of that period, how altered were the circumstances of Charles and his friend! The expenses of his establishment had increased upon the former until his fortune not only staggered but gave way under the pressure, and, after several ineffectual attempts to retrieve it by speculations, which, ending abortively, only increased his embarrassments, Charles found himself upon the brink of ruin. In these circumstances he found no consolation in the sympathy of his wife. She rather upbraided him with the loss of her fortune, forgetting how much of it she had squandered in her fashionable entertainments. Their altercations, moreover, had increased in frequency and violence ever since the scene we have recorded above, until Charles, unable to find even quiet at his own fireside, sought for relief in the club. Hither he was led, moreover, by the desire of retrieving his fortune, for his embarrassments were still unknown to the world, and he trusted that by a lucky chance he might place himself once more in security. Vain hope! How many deluded victims have indulged in the same delusion before. His course from that hour was downward. He became a gambler; he neglected all business; he lost; his engagements failed to be met; and in a few weeks he was bankrupt. Meantime the husband of Lucy had been steadily gaining in reputation, and increasing his business, so that at the end of the third year the young couple were enabled to move into a larger and more elegant house, situated in a more desirable quarter. This change of location materially strengthened the business of the young attorney; he became known as one of the _rising young men_; and he looked forward with certainty to the speedy accumulation of a competency.