while, of course, you claim from her the most ready sympathy in all
your interests and enthusiasms, give her, once in a great while, say
every year or so, a little genuine interest in the housekeeping trials
or dressmaker grievances that meet her at every turn.

"Moreover, I would recommend to you, should your wife happen to have
some literary or artistic tastes, not to ignore them entirely because
they do not pay so well as your counting-room accounts do, and are not
so entertaining to you as billiards. I would even indulge her by
sacrificing a whole evening to her, once in a while, even to the
detriment of your own business or pleasure. Depend upon it, it will
pay in the end."

"Now, Uncle, like Rosalind, you have simply misused your whole sex in
your special pleadings, both for and against. If Herbert were here, I
would appeal to him to know if the time can ever come when what I do
can be uninteresting to him. But I know, for myself, that such a thing
cannot be. You are not talking from your own experience, Uncle?"
added she, suddenly looking up in his face.

"My dear Alice, were it possible, should it ever seem likely, that my
experience might benefit you, how readily I would lay it open before
you! But those who have lived their lives are like the prophets of
old,--their words are believed only when they are fulfilled. The
meaning of life is never understood till it is past. Like Moses on the
rock, our faces are covered when the Lord passes by, and we see only
his back. But look behind you, my darling!"

Alice turned suddenly and her face lighted up into the full beauty of
happiness as she saw Herbert standing in the doorway.