From your point of view you may be right--but when one is young, and life stretches before you like a fair pleasure-ground, love and the smile of woman are like sunlight falling on flowers! You too must have felt this--in spite of what you say, there must have been a time in your life when you also loved!" "Oh, I have had my fancies, of course!" I answered, with an indifferent laugh.

"The woman I fancied turned out to be a saint--I was not worthy of her--at least, so I was told.

At any rate, I was so convinced of her virtue and my own unworthiness--that--I left her." He looked surprised.

"An odd reason, surely, for resigning her, was it not ?" "Very odd--very unusual--but a sufficient one for me.

Pray let us talk of something more interesting--your pictures, for instance.