Let the old dream nestle in thine heart; there is nothing else therein so beautiful. Don’t you remember what noble, unselfish things you would have done in those days? What were capital and interest, and shares at par or premium or discount to thee, except so far as money might concern her happiness? You have not seen that curl of hair, wrapped in faded paper, and put away in the dark corner of that old desk, for years. Take it out, old friend; there is nothing unmanly in thy tears, for it is manly to have loved, and it is better even “to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” It is something to have the memory of those happy times. You were happy, whatever you may say to the contrary, you know you were--ten times happier when she smiled and returned the pressure of your hand than you are now at the prosperous state of markets and the thrift of your firm. You may deny it; but the old times come back in the firelight, old friend, do they not, when the heart confesses its own bitterness? Don’t deny it, and don’t look ashamed at your own shadow in the glass, when you unfold that poor little curl. The happiness of Arthur and Phœbe was something to look upon and be happy at. If Asmodeus had taken you to that model farm-house, that you might have been a calm spectator of the love that had folded his wings and settled down there beside that hearth, you would have been happier for the sight. For it was a catching happiness, that of Phœbe and Arthur; an epidemic of joy and bliss and peace. You could not possibly have come within a yard of its influence without feeling a certain delight. If you happened to be a young fellow, a slight touch of envy might, perhaps, have struggled into your heart and embittered the sight; for Phœbe might have struck you as the realisation of all your dreams of beauty, so soft, and gentle, and pulpy, and rosy, and innocent, and loving. We only meet with those beauties in books, you say, and in pictures. But this is a common calumny upon English women. Such beauties as Phœbe Somerton are rare, no doubt; but there are tender, kitten-like, innocent, candid, pretty girls like her in many an English county. Ay, and girls as good and true and generous. If our friend Mr. Williamson were criticising this book for the _Pyrotechnic_, he would probably say at this point that so far as the heroines are concerned, the male novelist usually describes his characters as the perfection of beauty and goodness, impossibly lovely, impossibly true and generous; whilst the lady novelist combines beauty with devilry, and makes her charming women fiends beyond the imagination of men; and as Mr. W. has a smart epigrammatic way of writing, he would possibly say that whilst most men draw women as they ought to be, most women depict them as they ought not to be, and the public are waiting to see them painted as they are.