Arthur would bring Phœbe bundles of newspapers and magazines in which his pictures were criticised. And Phœbe would blush with delight over the praises there bestowed upon her lover, and look dreadfully astonished when any critic threw in some adverse suggestion or observation. The _Pyrotechnic_ said Arthur Phillips was at the head of his profession; no previous artist had combined landscape and figure painting with the success which had crowned his efforts: he was Salvator Rosa and Wilkie in one. Happily the higher class journals and the art magazines were more judicious in their commendations than this, but they all agreed that Mr. Phillips had a genius for painting, and knew how to put that genius into his pictures; so the artist was not only on the high-road to lasting fame, but to monetary competence. He therefore talked to Phœbe of their future with confidence, and Mrs. Somerton was not a little pleased to learn that after all her daughter would be the wife of a thriving man. There was something prophetic, Arthur thought, in his title of that picture which had given the finishing touch to his professional reputation; and Phœbe pressed his arm as he said so whilst they were walking up to the summer-house on those dear Berne Hills. Something quite prophetic! That gleam of inspiration which had fallen upon him in connection with those poor emigrants could only have been a stroke of Destiny: the tide was at the flood, and Fate pointed in the right direction. “Seeking New Homes!” It was the key-note to all the recent events in their history. They were all on the eve of seeking new homes: Mr. Somerton, Mrs. Somerton, Paul Somerton, Miss Tallant, and Phœbe, and himself. New homes! What a pleasant, happy ring there was in the words! Arthur drew all sorts of imaginary word-pictures of their home in the future; and it was a paradise indeed, with such a studio, where Phœbe should have an easel, too,--such a home, the home of Love and Art! If Arthur grew enthusiastically poetic in the contemplation of this future, who could feel surprised? Walking abroad with Phœbe Somerton hanging on his arm, betrothed to him, almost mated like the birds that were building their nests all round about them. Was it not a poetic time? Is there any period of the year more eloquent to lovers, more fairy-like, more hopeful than Spring?