CHAPTER XXIX.
THE COMPRADO IDYL.
A year had passed since Eugene, Countess de Bergamont, and the plain Captain Anatole had taken up the threads of life together; and although they were not doing very well, from a commercial point of looking at prosperity, yet they were satisfied, and, therefore being contented with their fate; they might be said to be doing well. It is all a comparative affair our doing well or ill. For instance, we may be doing very well on eighteen shillings per week to those who are only making twelve, yet we are badly enough off to the bloated, aristocratic, yet hungry-visaged, clerk who starves on thirty shillings. We are miserable objects also to the hard-up man on five pounds per week as we are wonders to the pauper on five hundred per year.
If our women think we are doing well on twelve shillings per week, then we are doing very well indeed. If our wives think we are miserable wretches on one or five thousand per annum, then we are indeed miser-
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