If a cold hand had been laid upon the bosom of Clara, she could not have experienced a more sudden chill. She made no reply. Ellison perceived, in an instant, the extent of his error. Like a man struggling in the mire, every moment seemed but to plunge him deeper. A more painful reserve followed this brief but unhappy interview. Deeply did the young man regret not having taken the certificates when they were handed to him. That was his only right course. But they were presented unexpectedly, and the first suggestion which came was that the act was more compulsory than voluntary on the part of his wife. The subject was not alluded to again, but it was scarcely for a moment out of the thoughts of either Clara or her husband. When the half-yearly interest became due, which was in the course of a week, Clara drew the money. It amounted to the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars. “You will not refuse this, I hope?” said she smiling, as she handed him what she had received. “It is the half-yearly interest on our stock.” Alfred was a little wiser by experience. “I have no particular use for it just now,” was his reply. “Suppose you keep it and pay our board every week as long as it lasts. Twenty-four dollars will be due to-morrow.” “Very well, just as you like, Alfred. If you should want any of it, you must help yourself. You will find it in my drawer.” “I’ll call on you if I should get out of pocket,” was replied to this in a playful tone of voice. Both felt relieved. But it grew out of the fact that Ellison had been able to disguise his real feelings, and this was but a false security. There was a certainty, however, about the means of paying the weekly charge for boarding, that was a great relief to the mind of Ellison, and which enabled him the better to hide his real feelings from his wife. Happily for him, the four pictures which had been talked about were ordered. He completed them in about five weeks, and received two hundred dollars, the price agreed upon. One hundred of this sum he paid to the friend who had loaned him the money to lift the obligation that was felt to be so oppressive. Fifty of what remained he placed in the hands of Clara, playfully saying to her as he did so, that she must be his banker. The remark was timely and well expressed, and it had its effect both upon his own mind and that of his wife. But the source of trouble lay too deep to be easily removed. Seek to disguise it as he would, Ellison could not hide from himself the fact, that he had suffered a great disappointment. Often and often, would come back upon him his old dream of the sunny clime of art and music, and he would feel the old, irrepressible longing to visit the shores of Italy. At last, it was some months after his marriage, he said to Clara, something favoring the remark— “I don’t think I shall ever be happy until I have seen the galleries of Rome and Florence.”