He did well; she came to London with a fine mind, a broad brogue, a delicate ear; she observed how her husband's friends spoke, and in a very few months she had toned down her Scotch to a rich Ionic coloring, which her womanly instinct will never let her exchange for the thin, vinegar accents that are too prevalent in English and French society; and in other respects she caught, by easy gradation, the tone of the new society to which her marriage introduced her, without, however, losing her charming self.
The wise dowager lodges hard by, having resisted an invitation to be in the same house; she comes to that house to assist the young wife with her experience, and to be welcome--not to interfere every minute, and tease her; she loves her daughter-in-law almost as much as she does her son, and she is happy because he bids fair to be an immortal painter, and, above all, a gentleman; and she, a wifely wife, a motherly mother, and, above all, a lady.
This, then, is a happy couple.

Their life is full of purpose and industry, yet lightened by gayety; they go to operas, theaters and balls, for they are young.

They have plenty of society, real society, not the ill-assorted collection of a predetermined number of bodies, that blindly assumes that name, but the rich communication of various and fertile minds; they very, very seldom consent to squat four mortal hours on one chair (like old hares stiffening in their hot forms), and nibbling, sipping and twaddling in four mortal hours what could have been eaten, drunken and said in thirty-five minutes.

They are both artists at heart, and it shocks their natures to see folks mix so very largely the _inutile_ with the _insipidum,_ and waste, at one huge but barren incubation, the soul, and the stomach, and the irrevocable hours, things with which so much is to be done.

But they have many desirable acquaintances, and not a few friends; the latter are mostly lovers of truth in their several departments, and in all things.