Drawing up his chair to the table, he was soon deep in his letters; but turning round to poke the fire, his eye fell on the little bag. "How can I have come by this, I wonder? And what can it be?" he said to himself, as he took it up and turned it round and round. It was fastened by an ordinary padlock, which easily opened on the application of one of the doctor's keys. "Nothing but waste paper," he said, as he turned out a portion of the contents, which appeared to consist merely of pieces of newspaper and brown paper crumpled up. "Pshaw! Some foolish hoax or practical joke intended for me, or somebody else, perhaps!" he exclaimed. "Well, it seems scarcely worth making any trouble about; but if it has come here by mistake, and is of sufficient value, there will be inquiries or an advertis.e.m.e.nt about it." So saying, he replaced the crumpled papers, locked the bag again, and opening his closet, placed it on one of the upper shelves, where it must rest for a while and gather dust.

When Dr Prosser had finished reading his letters, and had answered such as needed an immediate reply, he betook himself to the drawing-room.

This was a large apartment, occupying upstairs the same area as the library, hall, and dining-room. It was handsomely furnished, bearing marks in every direction of a highly cultivated taste and of woman's handiwork. Yet there was wanting that peculiar air of comfort which gives a heart--cheering glow alike to the humblest cottage parlour and the elegant saloon of the man of wealth and refinement. Indeed, it might truly be said that the room abounded in everything that could be devised, _but_ comfort. Like a picture full of brilliant colouring, the various hues of which need blending and toning down, so the articles of luxury and beauty lavishly scattered about Dr Prosser's drawing-room, though tastefully selected, seemed calculated rather to call forth the pa.s.sing admiration of friends and strangers than to give abiding pleasure to their possessors.

At present there was certainly something very discouraging about the whole appearance of things in the eyes of the doctor, as he entered the costly furnished apartment. A fire, it is true, twinkled between the bars of the grate; but its few feeble sparks, in contrast with the prevailing surroundings of black coal and cinders, were suggestive to the feelings rather of the chilliness they were meant to counteract than of the warmth which they were designed to impart. Near the fire was a dwarf, round, three-legged table, on which lay a ma.n.u.script in a female hand. The doctor took it up, and laid it down with a sigh. It was a portion of a long-since-begun and never-likely-to-be-finished essay on comparative anatomy. A heap of unanswered letters lay on a taller table close by, having displaced a work-basket, whose appearance of superlative neatness showed how seldom the fingers of its gentle owner explored or made use of its homely stores. A grand piano stood near the richly curtained windows. It was open. A vocal duet occupied the music-rest, and various other pieces for voice and instrument were strewed along the highly polished top. Near the piano was a harp, while a ma.n.u.script book of German and Italian songs was placed upon an elegant stand near it, and other pieces filled a gaping portfolio at the foot.

On a beautifully inlaid table in the centre of the room was an unfinished water-colour drawing, propped up by a pile of richly gilded and ornamented books. The drawing, with its support, had been pushed back towards the middle of the table, to make way for a sheet or two of note-paper containing portions of a projected poem. And the presiding and inspiring genius of all this beautiful confusion was Agnes Prosser.

And did she make her husband happy? Well, it was taken for granted by friends and acquaintance that she did--or, at any rate, that it must be _his_ fault if she did not; and so the poor doctor thought himself. He was proud of his wife, and considered that he ought to be thoroughly happy with her; but somehow or other, he was not so. She was, in the common acceptation of the words, highly accomplished, of an amiable and loving disposition, graceful and winning in person and manner, able to take the head of his table to the entire satisfaction of himself and his friends, and capable of conversing well on every subject with all who were invited to her house, or whom she met in society elsewhere.

What could her husband want more? He _did_ want something more--his heart asked and yearned for something more. What was it? He could hardly distinctly tell. Nevertheless he felt himself on this afternoon--he had been gradually approaching the feeling for some time past--a disappointed man. Perhaps it was his own fault, he thought; yet so it was.

He was now just forty years of age, and had been married three years.

His wife was some ten years younger than himself. He had looked well round him before making choice of one with whom he was to share the joys and sorrows of a domestic life. He was a man who thoroughly respected religion, and could well discriminate between the genuine servant of Christ and the mere sounding professor, while at the same time scientific studies had rather tended to make him undervalue clear dogmatic teaching as set forth in the revealed Word of G.o.d. Yet he was too profound a thinker to adopt that popular scepticism which is either the refuge of those who, consciously or unconsciously, use it as a screen, though it proves but a semi-transparent one at the best, to shut out the light of a coming judgment, or the halting-place of thinkers who stop short of the only source of true and infallible wisdom--the revealed mind of G.o.d. His wife, too, had been taught religiously, and cordially a.s.sented to the truths of the gospel, though the constraining love of Christ was yet wanting; and both she and her husband were intimate friends of one whose path had ever been since they had known it, "the path of the just, like the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day:" and that one was Ernest Maltby, now vicar of Crossbourne.

So Dr Prosser had chosen his wife well. And yet he was disappointed in her; and why? Just because he had made the mistake--and how common a mistake it is in these days--of supposing that accomplishments acquired and a highly cultivated mind make the model woman, wife, and mother.

Surely the mistake is a sad and fatal one--fatal to woman's highest happiness and truest usefulness; fatal to her due fulfilment of the part which her loving Creator designed her to fulfil in this world!

There are two concentric circles in which we all move, an inner or domestic circle, an outer or social circle. We are too often educating our women merely for the outer circle. We crowd the mind and memory with knowledge of all sorts, that they may shine in society: we forget to teach them first and foremost how to make home happy. It was so with Mrs Prosser. She had overstrained her mind with the burden of a mult.i.tude of acquirements and accomplishments, which had not, after all, made her truly accomplished. One or two things for which she had real taste and ability thoroughly mastered would have been a far greater source of delight to her husband, and of satisfaction to herself, than the mere handful of unripe fruit which she had gathered from a dozen different branches of the tree of knowledge, and in the collecting of which she had, in a measure, impaired the elasticity of her mind and her bodily strength, and found no time for making herself mistress of a thousand little undemonstrative acquirements which tend to keep a steady light of joy and peace burning daily and hourly in the home.

What wonder, then, that, when a little one came to gladden the hearts of those who were already fondly attached to each other, the poor mother was unable to do justice to her child. Partly nourished by a stranger, and partly brought up by hand, and missing those numberless little attentions which either ignorance or a mind otherwise occupied prevented Mrs Prosser from giving to the frail being who had brought into the world with it a delicacy of const.i.tution due, in a considerable degree, to its mother's overstrain of mind and body, the baby pined and drooped, and, spite of medicine, prayers, and tears, soon closed its weary eyes on a world which had used it but roughly, to wing its way into a land unclouded by sin or sorrow.

How keenly he felt the loss of his child the doctor dared not say, especially to his wife, entertaining as he did a painful misgiving that she had hardly done her duty by it; while on the mother's heart there rested an abiding burden, made doubly heavy by a dreadful consciousness of neglect on her part--a burden which no lapse of time could ever wholly remove. Thus a stationary shadow brooded over that home where all might have been unclouded sunshine.

Dr Prosser was disappointed; for he had hoped to find in his wife, not merely or chiefly an intellectual and highly educated companion, but one in whose society he could entirely unbend--one who would make his home bright by causing him to forget for a while science and the busy whirl of the world in the beautiful womanly tendernesses which rejoice a husband's heart, and smooth out the wrinkles from his brow.

It was, then, as a disappointed man that Dr Prosser sat with his feet on the drawing-room polished fender with his chair tilted back. Moodily gazing at the cheerless fire, he had become sunk deep in absorbing meditation, when a rushing step on the stairs roused him from his reverie, and scattered for the time all painful thoughts.

"My dear, dear John, how delighted I am to see you back; I hardly expected you so soon!" exclaimed Agnes Prosser, after exchanging a most loving salutation with her husband.

"Why, I thought," was the answer, with somewhat of reproach in its tone, "that you knew I should be here this afternoon."

"Oh yes; but hardly so soon. Well, I am so sorry; it was too bad not to be at home to welcome you. And, I declare, they've nearly let the fire out. What can that stupid boy have been about? And the room in such confusion too! Well, dearest, you shan't find it so again. Just ring the bell, please, and we'll make ourselves comfortable.--William," to the boy who answered the summons, "bring up a cup of tea, and a gla.s.s of sherry, and the biscuit box.--You'll like a cup of tea, John.--And, by- the-by, William, tell Mrs Lloyd I should like dinner half an hour earlier.--You won't mind dinner at half-past five to-day, dearest?"

"No, my dear Agnes, not if it is more convenient to yourself."

"Why, the fact is, I've promised to meet a select committee of ladies this evening at seven o'clock, at Lady Strong's."

"What!--this evening!" exclaimed her husband. "Why, it's Christmas-eve!

Whatever can these good ladies want with one another to-night away from their own firesides?"

"Ah now, John, that's a little hit at your poor wife. But a man with your high sense of duty ought not to say so. You know it must be 'duty first, and pleasure afterwards.'"

"True, Agnes, where the duty is one plainly laid upon us, but not where it is of one's own imposing. I can't help thinking that a wife's first and chief duties lie at home."

"Oh, now, you mustn't look grave like that, and scold me. I ordered a fly to call for me at a quarter to seven, and I shan't be gone much more than an hour, I daresay. And you can have a good long snooze by the dining-room fire while I'm away. I know how you enjoy a snooze."

William now appearing with the tray, she pa.s.sed the tea to her husband, and took the gla.s.s of sherry herself. A cloud settled for a moment on the doctor's brow. He wished that the constant drain on his wife's energies, physical and mental, could be restored by something less perilous than these stimulants, resorted to, he could see, with increasing frequency. But she always a.s.sured him that nothing so reinvigorated her as just one gla.s.s of sherry.

"And what are these good ladies going to meet about?" he asked, when the tray had been removed.

"Oh, you'll laugh, I daresay, when I tell you," she replied; "but I a.s.sure you that they are all good and earnest workers. We are going to discuss the best way of improving the homes of the working-cla.s.ses."

"Well," said the doctor, laughing, but with a touch of mingled sarcasm and bitterness in his voice, "I think your committee can't do better than advise the working-women of England generally to make their homes more attractive to their husbands, and to lead the way yourselves."

"My dearest John," exclaimed his wife, a little taken aback, "you are cruelly hard upon us poor ladies. I declare you're getting positively spiteful. I think we'd better change the subject.--How did you leave our dear friends the Johnsons? And what are they doing in the north about the 'strikes' and 'trades-unions'?"

"Really," he replied wearily, "I must leave the 'strikes' and such things to take care of themselves just now. The Johnsons send their love. They were all well, and most kind and hospitable. But, my dearest wife, I feel concerned about yourself; you look f.a.gged and pale.

Come, sit down for a few minutes, and tell me all about it. There, the fire's burning up a bit; and now that I have got you for a while, I must not let you slip through my fingers. Just lay your bonnet down; you'll have plenty of time to dress for dinner. I don't like these evening meetings. I am sure they are good for neither mind nor body. You'll wear yourself out."

"Oh, nonsense, dear John; I never was better than I am now--only a little tired now and then. But surely we are put into this world to do good; and it is better to wear out than to rust out."

"Not a doubt of it, my dearest Agnes; but it is quite possible to keep the rust away without wearing yourself out at all; and, still more, without wearing yourself out prematurely. At the rate you are going on now, you will finish up your usefulness in a few years at the farthest, instead of extending it, please G.o.d, over a long and peaceful life."

Mrs Prosser was silent for a few moments, and then she said: "Are you not a little unreasonable, dear John? What would you have me give up?

If all were of your mind, what would become of society?"

"Why, in that case, I believe that society would find itself on a much safer foundation, and surrounded by a much healthier atmosphere. But come, now, tell me, what are your engagements for next week?"

"Why, not so many. To-morrow is Christmas-day, you know, and the next day is Sunday, so that I shall have quite a holiday, and a fine time for recruiting."

"Good! And what on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etcetera?"

"Let me see, John. On Monday and Thursday mornings Clara Thompson and her sister come here, and we read French, German, and Italian together; and on Monday evening we meet at Clara's mother's to practise for the amateur concert. On Tuesday morning I have promised to help poor Miss Danvers."

"Miss Danvers! Why, what help can she need from you?"

"Come, dearest John, don't be unfeeling; she is over head and ears in debt, and--"

"And do you mean that you are going to take her liabilities upon yourself?"

"Nonsense, John; you are laughing at me; it isn't kind. I had not finished my sentence. She is overwhelmed with letter-debts, poor thing; and I promised to go and help her with her correspondence. You know we are told in the Bible to 'bear one another's burdens.'"

"True, my dearest wife; but the same high authority, if I remember rightly, bids us do our own business first. But what has entailed such an enormous amount of correspondence on Miss Danvers?"

"Only her anxiety to do good. She is secretary to some half-dozen ladies' societies for meeting all sorts of wants and troubles.--Ah! I see that cruel smile again on your face; but positively you must not laugh at me nor her. I am sure she is one of the n.o.blest women I know."

"I won't question it for a moment, but I wish she could contrive to keep her benevolence within such reasonable limits as would allow her to transact her own business without taxing her friends. Anything more on Tuesday?"

"Nothing more, dearest, on Tuesday, away from home; but of course you know that I have to work hard at my essay, my music, my drawing, and my little poem. I see you shrug your shoulders, but you must not be hard upon me. Why was I taught all these things if I am to make no use of them?"

"Why, indeed?" were the words which rose to the doctor's lips, but he did not utter them. He only smiled sadly, and asked, "What of Wednesday?"

"There, John, perhaps you had better look for yourself," she said, rather piqued at his manner, and taking a little card from her pocket- book, she handed it to him.

Pressing her left hand lovingly in his own, he took the card from her, and read:--

"'Engagements. Wednesday, 11 a.m. Meet the professor at Mrs Maskelyne's.'--Mrs Maskelyne! That's your strong-minded friend who goes in for muscular Christianity and vivisection! I'm very glad we don't keep a pet terrier or spaniel!"--"Ah, John, you may laugh, but she's a wonderful woman!"--"'Wonderful!' perhaps so, dear Agnes,--an 'awful' woman, _I_ should say; that's only a term expressive of a different kind of admiration.--'Concert in the evening.'