“I’m glad to overhaul you so opportunely.  Half a dozen times, to-day, I have been on the eve of running round to see you, but as often was prevented.  All in good time yet, I hope.  I want you to come over to my room, this evening.  There are to be three or four of our friends there, and some good eating and drinking into the bargain.”

“A temptation certainly,” replied Ellis.  “No man likes good company better than I do; but, I rather think I must forego the pleasure this time.”

“Why do you say that?”

I’ve promised myself another pleasure.”

“Another engagement?”

“Not exactly that.  Barker has loaned me the first volume of Prescott’s Mexico; and I’m going to spend the evening in reading it to my wife.”

“Any other evening will do as well for that,” returned the friend.  “So promise me to come around.  I can’t do without you.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Ellis, firmly.  “But, when I once get my mind fixed on a thing, I am hard to change.”

“Perhaps your wife may have some engagement on hand, for the evening, or be disinclined for reading.  What then?”

“You will see me at your room,” was the prompt answer of Ellis; and the words were uttered with more feeling than he had intended to exhibit.  The very question brought unpleasant images before his mind.

“I shall look for you,” said the friend, whose name was Jerome.  Good evening!”

“Good evening!  Say to your friends, if I should not be there, that I am in better company.”

The two men parted, and Ellis kept on his way homeward.  Not until the suggestion of Jerome that his wife might be disinclined to hear him read, did a remembrance of Cara’s uncertain temper throw a shade across his feelings.  He sighed as he moved onward.

“I wish she were kinder and more considerate,” he said to himself.  “I know that I don’t always do right; yet, I am not by any means so bad as she sometimes makes me out.  To any thing reasonable, I am always ready to yield.  But when she frowns if I light a cigar; and calls me a tippler whenever she detects the smell of brandy and water, I grow angry and stubborn.  Ah, me!”

Ellis sighed heavily.  A little way he walked on, and then began communing with himself.

“I don’t know”—­he went on—­“but, may be, I do take a little too much sometimes.  I rather think I must have been drinking too freely when I came home last week:  by the way Cara talked, and by the way she acted for two or three days afterwards.  There may be danger.  Perhaps there is.  My head isn’t very strong; and it doesn’t take much to affect me.  I wish Cara wouldn’t speak to me as she does sometimes.  I can’t bear it.  Twice within the last month, she has fairly driven me off to spend my evening in a tavern, when I would much rather have been at home.  Ah, me!  It’s a great mistake.  And Cara may find it out, some day, to her sorrow.  I like a glass of brandy, now