It is impossible to figure a happier or a more harmonious existence. In imagination they roamed over the entire world without the expense or inconvenience of foreign travel: their spirits ranged through the whole gamut of human emotion, and whatever adversities the Algernon and Eva of the moment went through, their creators and interpreters knew in their heart of hearts that all was going to end well, for otherwise they would speedily have lost their pinnacled eminence as writers of serial stories in the daily press. It is true that Philip’s voice often shook as he read, and that Phœbe’s eyes were dim as she listened to the written tale of the remarkable disasters and misunderstandings through which the children of her brain had to pass; but these were but luxurious and sterile sorrows. In fact, the greatest trial that ever came to them during these halcyon years was when the editor of one of the papers in which the tale was running wrote to say that it was so popular that he insisted on having at least another fortnight of it, instead of bringing it to an end in two more instalments. That entailed a vast deal of work, for Phœbe had to search the file to find out by what constructive carpentering she could engineer an episode that would be of the requisite length; for the last instalment of all, when the severed were reunited, must naturally be left for the end. But she never failed to manage it somehow, and even when tribulation was great, and for the moment she could not conceive how to spin the story out, her cloud had a silver lining, for all this difficult work was due to the story’s amazing popularity. Or sometimes some ill-mannered reader would write to the newspaper office to point out that St. Peter’s Church at Rome did not stand on a “commanding eminence,” or ask more information about the “glittering spires” on the Acropolis at Athens, or demur to the “pellucid waters of the Nile in flood, as it rolled down in blue cataracts studded with milk-white foam.” But otherwise their life flowed on in an unbroken succession of literary triumphs and domestic happiness.