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A Plethora of Happiness.

ted childhood, and could never become equals, or even intelligent companions. "Mind" to him was of masculine gender, and he had no faith in the existence of "a woman of mind" who was not unfeminine. According to his creed, womanhood. should ignore æsthetic tastes, and for her to show any disposition

"To ponder the precipitous sidesOf difficult questions,"

was a social crime.

To have discovered some electric sparks of genius accidentally flashing from the lips or the pen of his wife, would have rendered him the most miserable of men. Perhaps he was not very unreasonable in that respect. Genius, with her airy flights, her vivid imagination, her quick sensibilities, her abstraction, her states of alternate exaltation and melancholy, so incomprehensible to matter-of-fact natures, is too seldom an agreeable fireside companion. Men hardly care to see a Sappho or a Corinne sitting opposite to them at the breakfast table. Laurels are a nuisance on the hearthstone of home; fling them into the flames, or sweep them up with the ashes!

Angelica Raymond was the daughter of a Philadelphia banker. Mr. Willington met her at Newport, a little less than six years before the period at which we have introduced him to the reader. She was the reigning belle of the season, a sylph-

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