Of course, ideas vary with regard to the essentials of an “excellent husband.” With many persons the _desideratum_ is reached when the tradesmen’s bills are punctually paid, and there is no conjugal quarrel over the dressmaker’s account. With some the model husband is he who belongs to no club, and always stays at home in the evenings; while others there are who consider that connubial perfection consists in the husband going his own way, and allowing his wife to go hers and find her own amusements quite irrespective of him. But there is really no fixed standard of excellence in husbands. The temperament, and even the temper, of the wife must determine this in each separate case. Now, Dr. Hearthside was spoken of as an “excellent husband” in embryo, and many mothers angled for him, and their daughters encouraged hopes. He was a ladies’ doctor, and his ways with women were soft and tender, his voice was musical and sympathetic, and his manner seemed to invite confidence and promise protection. Yet he was before everything professional. Tenderly as he seemed to treat them, women were to him interesting cases, psychologically as well as medically, and his lover-like methods were part and parcel of his practice. He knew women, and knew that personal confidence is half the battle in successful medical practice. Women always like to feel that a man is a possible lover, if even they only require his services as a doctor. They do not admit this to themselves, of course, but it is the case, for all that. Dr. Hearthside was deceptive; his tender manner with women covered merely a spirit of scientific investigation. When he was specially attentive to a woman—and his attention meant a sort of respectful devotion—he was deeply diagnosing her mental, moral, and physical condition; but she most probably thought he was making love to her. Mrs. Hearthside had been attracted to him in this manner. He found her melancholy, and she interested him as a study in disappointed love. He drew her out by speaking constantly to her about love, and she gave herself up gradually to his persuasive influence. She had hungered for love since death, by taking from her the man in whom her soul was wrapped up, had made life empty for her. She fed her heart on the memories of her love; but her soul had been awakened, and it yearned again for loving communion such as it had once known. Dr. Hearthside suggested the possibilities of love to her. When he analysed sentiment to her in quite a scientific way, her heart responded with emotion, for she thought he was pouring out his own feelings before her. So she consented to marry him, because she believed he could love, and love was the pressing need of her soul; while he, finding her a sympathetic and ready listener, and being pleased with her looks and her manners, thought she would make an excellent doctor’s wife, and help him to enlarge his practice through her social qualities. So these two