"It isn't the whisky," I replied; "it's deeper than that. I fancy it's
more mental than bodily."

"You've been reading those criticisms again," said Ethelbertha, more
sympathetically; "why don't you take my advice and put them on the fire?"

"And it isn't the criticisms," I answered; "they've been quite flattering
of late--one or two of them."

"Well, what is it?" said Ethelbertha; "there must be something to account
for it."

"No, there isn't," I replied; "that's the remarkable thing about it; I
can only describe it as a strange feeling of unrest that seems to have
taken possession of me."

Ethelbertha glanced across at me with a somewhat curious expression, I
thought; but as she said nothing, I continued the argument myself.

"This aching monotony of life, these days of peaceful, uneventful
felicity, they appal one."

"I should not grumble at them," said Ethelbertha; "we might get some of
the other sort, and like them still less."

"I'm not so sure of that," I replied. "In a life of continuous joy, I
can imagine even pain coming as a welcome variation. I wonder sometimes
whether the saints in heaven do not occasionally feel the continual
serenity a burden. To myself a life of endless bliss, uninterrupted by a