I have been running hither and thither to find some
angel who will consent to live in this ill-assorted household. Oh,
how different everything is from what I had planned! I wanted a
cheerful home, where I should be the centre of every joy; a home like
Aunty's, without a cloud. But Ernest's father sits, the
personification of silent gloom, like a nightmare on my spirits;
Martha holds me in disfavor and contempt; Ernest is absorbed in his
profession, and I hardly see him. If he wants advice he asks it of
Martha, while I sit, humbled, degraded and ashamed, wondering why he
ever married me at all. And then come interludes of wild joy when he
appears just as he did in the happy days of our bridal trip, and I
forget every grievance and hang on his words and looks like one
intoxicated with bliss.
OCT. 2.-There has been another explosion. I held in as long as I
could, and then flew into ten thousand pieces. Ernest had got into
the habit of helping his father and sister at the table, and
apparently forgetting me. It seems a little thing, but it chafed and
fretted my already irritated soul till at last I was almost beside
myself.
Yesterday they all three sat eating their breakfast and I, with empty
plate, sat boiling over and, looking on, when Ernest brought things
to a crisis by saying to Martha,
"If you can find time to-day I wish you would go out with me for half
an hour or so.
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