had not listened to the vanity of a heated brain--better that I had
made my home with the lark and the wild bee, among the fields and the
quiet hills, where life, if obscurer, is less debased, and hope, if
less eagerly indulged, is less bitterly disappointed. The frame, it
is true, might have been bowed to a harsher labour, but the heart
would at least have had its rest from anxiety, and the mind its
relaxation from thought."

The wife's tears fell upon the hand she clasped. The student turned,
and his heart smote him for the selfishness of his complaint. He drew
her closer and closer to his bosom; and gazing fondly upon those eyes
which years of indigence and care might have robbed of their young
lustre, but not of their undying tenderness, he kissed away her tears,
and addressed her in a voice which never failed to charm her grief
into forgetfulness.

"Dearest and kindest," he said, "was I not to blame for accusing those
privations or regrets which have only made us love each other the
more? Trust me, mine own treasure, that it is only in the peevishness
of an inconstant and fretful humour that I have murmured against my
fortune. For, in the midst of all, I look upon you, my angel, my
comforter, my young dream of love, which God, in His mercy, breathed
into waking life--I look upon you, and am blessed and grateful. Nor
in my juster moments do I accuse even the nature of these studies,
though they bring us so scanty a reward. Have I not hours of secret
and overflowing delight, the triumphs of gratified research--flashes
of sudden light, which reward the darkness of thought, and light up my
solitude as a revel?--These feelings of rapture, which nought but
Science can afford, amply repay her disciples for worse evils and
severer handships than it has been my destiny to endure. Look along