“Why didn’t I choose the law as a profession?” he would sometimes say to his young wife.  “Then I might have shone.  But to bury myself as a physician, stealing about from house to house, and moping over sick beds, is a sacrifice of my talents that I cannot think of without turning from the picture with disgust.”

“Nor can I,” would be the wife’s reply.  “And what is more, I never will consent to such a perversion of your talents.”

“Why cannot you study law, even now, Charles?” she asked of him one day.  “With your acquirements, and habits of thought, I am sure you would soon be able to pass an examination.”

“I think that is a good suggestion, Adelaide,” her husband replied, thoughtfully.  “I should only want a year or eighteen months for preparation, and then I could soon place myself in the front rank of the profession.”

The suggestion of Charles Fenwick’s wife was promptly adopted.  A course of legal studies was entered upon, and completed in about two years.  Up to this time, every thing had gone on with our young couple as smoothly as a summer sea.  A beautifully furnished house, well kept through the attention of two or three servants, gave to their indoor enjoyments a very important accessory.  For money there was no care, as the elder Mr. Fenwick’s purse-strings relaxed as readily to the hand of Charles as to his own.  A pleasant round of intelligent company, mostly of a literary character, with a full supply of all the new publications and leading periodicals of the day, kept their minds elevated into the region of intellectual enjoyments, and caused them still more to look down upon the ordinary pursuits of life as far beneath them.

But all this could not last forever.  On the day Charles was admitted to the bar, he received a note from his father, requesting an immediate interview.  He repaired at once to his counting room, in answer to the parental summons.

“Charles,” said the old man, when they were alone, “I have, up to this time, supplied all your wants, and have done it cheerfully.  In order to prepare you for taking your right place in society, I have spared no expense in your education, bearing you, after your term of college life had expired, through two professional courses, so that, as either a physician or a lawyer, you are fully equal to the task of sustaining yourself and family.  As far as I am concerned, the tide of prosperity has evidently turned against me.  For two years, I have felt myself gradually going back, instead of forward, notwithstanding my most earnest struggles to maintain at least the position already gained.  To-day, the notice of a heavy loss completes my inability to bear the burden of your support, and that of my own family.  You must, therefore, Charles, enter the world for yourself, and there struggle as I have done, and as all do around you, for a living.  But, as I know that it will be impossible for you to obtain sufficient practice at once in either law or medicine to maintain yourself, I will spare you out of my income, which will now be small in comparison to what it has been, four hundred dollars a year, for the next two years.  You must yourself make up the deficiency, and no doubt you can easily do so.”