less--that her beauty had faded, or her temper changed. She was the same as
ever--gentle, affectionate, and thoughtful for his wishes; and he
appreciated all this. But before he had known her, in those wild idle days
of early manhood, when the spirit craves continual excitement, and has not
yet learned that it is the love of woman's purer nature which it needs,
Willis had chosen his associates in a circle which it was very difficult to
break from, now that their society was no longer essential to him. He was
close in his attention to business; his great, success had arisen from
industry as well as talent; but when the counting-house was closed, there
was no family circle to welcome him, and the doors of the club-house were
invitingly open.

True, it was one of the most respectable clubs of the city, mostly composed
of young business men like himself, who discussed the tariffs and their
effects upon trade over their _recherche_ dinners, and chatted of European
politics over their wine. And this reminds us of one thing that argues
much, if not more than anything else, against the club-house system, that
is so rapidly gaining favor in our cities. It accustoms the young man just
entering life to a surrounding of luxury that he cannot himself
consistently support when he begins to think of having a home of his own.
He passes his evenings in a beautiful saloon, where the light is brilliant,
yet tempered; where crimson curtains and a blazing fire speak at once of
comfort and affluence of means. There are no discomforts, such as any one
meets with more or less, inevitably, in private families--nothing to jar
upon the spirit of self-indulgence and indolence which is thus fostered.
The dinners, in cooking and service, are unexceptionable; and there are
always plenty of associates as idle and thoughtless, and as good-natured,
as himself, to make a jest of domestic life and domestic virtues. And,
by-and-by, there is a stronger stimulus wanted, and the jest becomes more
wanton over the roulette table or the keenly contested rubber; and the wine