I am working hard to repay my brother for all his expenses on my account; not that there is the slightest necessity for anything of the kind, but it pleases me to do so: I shall have so much more pleasure in my labour, my earnings, my frugal fare, and household economy, when I know that I am paying my way honestly, and that what little I possess is legitimately all my own; and that no one suffers for my folly--in a pecuniary way at least.

I shall make him take the last penny I owe him, if I can possibly effect it without offending him too deeply.

I have a few pictures already done, for I told Rachel to pack up all I had; and she executed her commission but too well--for among the rest, she put up a portrait of Mr.Huntingdon that I had painted in the first year of my marriage.

It struck me with dismay, at the moment, when I took it from the box and beheld those eyes fixed upon me in their mocking mirth, as if exulting still in his power to control my fate, and deriding my efforts to escape.
How widely different had been my feelings in painting that portrait to what they now were in looking upon it! How I had studied and toiled to produce something, as I thought, worthy of the original! what mingled pleasure and dissatisfaction I had had in the result of my labours!--pleasure for the likeness I had caught; dissatisfaction, because I had not made it handsome enough.

Now, I see no beauty in it--nothing pleasing in any part of its expression; and yet it is far handsomer and far more agreeable--far less repulsive I should rather say--than he is now: for these six years have wrought almost as great a change upon himself as on my feelings regarding him.