Ambition is only one phase of the universal human longing for happiness. He who has his life's happiness embodied in a beloved form at his side, can easily forget the formless dreams of his aspiring youth, especially if, as was the case here, the joy which appears so trifling to the eyes of the proud world nevertheless excites the envy of those close at hand, and the narrow limits of the household horizon do not bind down the soul. This, however, was chiefly owing to the fair-haired wife. She had what is called a tinge of romance, a dissatisfaction with the dry, bare reality of things around her, a longing to gild the grey light of every-day existence with the treasures of her own heart and a lively imagination, and amid the oppressive uniformity of her household cares, retained a play of fancy, that with all her toil and weariness kept her young and gay. She herself said people ought to follow the example of the birds, who, while building their nests, did not sweat as if working for daily wages, but as they flew to and fro sang, eat a berry, or perhaps soared so high into the air, that one might suppose they would never return to their lowly bush. As this arose from a necessity of her nature, and she never boasted of it, though she never denied it, her poetic taste built a brighter world above this dreary, prosaic one, and was a source of constant rejuvenation to her more practical husband. He never emerged from the state of transfiguration that surrounds the honeymoon, and even after he had been married many years, felt when sitting in his office over his account-books, as much impatience to rejoin his beloved wife, as he had ever experienced as an enthusiastic young lawyer, in the earliest days of his love.