“You intend to return to Europe and resume your irregular manner of life?” Mr. Wentworth inquired.

“I can’t say I intend.  But it ’s very likely I shall go back to Europe.  After all, I am a European.  I feel that, you know.  It will depend a good deal upon my sister.  She ’s even more of a European than I; here, you know, she ’s a picture out of her setting.  And as for ‘resuming,’ dear uncle, I really have never given up my irregular manner of life.  What, for me, could be more irregular than this?”

“Than what?” asked Mr. Wentworth, with his pale gravity.

“Well, than everything!  Living in the midst of you, this way; this charming, quiet, serious family life; fraternizing with Charlotte and Gertrude; calling upon twenty young ladies and going out to walk with them; sitting with you in the evening on the piazza and listening to the crickets, and going to bed at ten o’clock.”

“Your description is very animated,” said Mr. Wentworth; “but I see nothing improper in what you describe.”

“Neither do I, dear uncle.  It is extremely delightful; I should n’t like it if it were improper.  I assure you I don’t like improper things; though I dare say you think I do,” Felix went on, painting away.

“I have never accused you of that.”

“Pray don’t,” said Felix, “because, you see, at bottom I am a terrible Philistine.”

“A Philistine?” repeated Mr. Wentworth.

“I mean, as one may say, a plain, God-fearing man.”  Mr. Wentworth looked at him reservedly, like a mystified sage, and Felix continued, “I trust I shall enjoy a venerable and venerated old age.  I mean to live long.  I can hardly call that a plan, perhaps; but it ’s a keen desire—­a rosy vision.  I shall be a lively, perhaps even a frivolous old man!”

“It is natural,” said his uncle, sententiously, “that one should desire to prolong an agreeable life.  We have perhaps a selfish indisposition to bring our pleasure to a close.  But I presume,” he added, “that you expect to marry.”

“That too, dear uncle, is a hope, a desire, a vision,” said Felix.  It occurred to him for an instant that this was possibly a preface to the offer of the hand of one of Mr. Wentworth’s admirable daughters.  But in the name of decent modesty and a proper sense of the hard realities of this world, Felix banished the thought.  His uncle was the incarnation of benevolence, certainly; but from that to accepting—­much more postulating—­the idea of a union between a young lady with a dowry presumptively brilliant and a penniless artist with no prospect of fame, there was a very long way.  Felix had lately become conscious of a luxurious preference for the society—­if possible unshared with others—­of Gertrude Wentworth; but he had relegated this young lady, for the moment, to the coldly brilliant category of unattainable possessions.  She was not the first woman for whom he had entertained an unpractical admiration.  He had been in love