Oh, Bertha, this is nothing less than a soul's tragedy! When I think what he used to be, what I hoped of him, what he hoped for himself! Is it not dreadful that he should have fallen so low, and in so short a time! A popular success! Oh, the shame of it, the bitter shame!" At this point, the reader's smile threatened laughter.

But, feeling sure that her friend, if guilty of affectation, was quite unconscious of it, she composed her face to read gravely on.
"A soul's tragedy, Bertha, and _I_ the cause of it One can see now, but too well, what is before him.

All his hardships are over, and all his struggles.

He will become a popular painter--one of those whose name is familiar to the crowd, like--" instances were cited.

"I can say, with all earnestness, that I had rather have seen him starved to death.
Poor, poor N.F.! Something whispers to me that perhaps I was always under an illusion about him.