But when I went back to my
children, vexation with him took flight at once. The coming of each
new child strengthens and deepens my desire to be what I would have
it become; makes my faults more odious in my eyes, and elevates my
whole character. What a blessed discipline of joy and of pain my
married life has been; how thankful I am to reap its fruits even
while pricked by its thorns!
JUNE 21.-It seems that the happy man who has wooed Martha and won her
is no less a personage than old Mr. Underhill. His ideal of a woman
is one who has no nerves, no sentiment, no backaches, no headaches,
who will see that the wheels of his household machinery are kept well
oiled, so that he need never hear them creak, and who, in addition to
her other accomplishments, believes in him and will be kind enough to
live forever for his private accommodation. This expose of his
sentiments he has made to me in a loud, cheerful, pompous way, and he
has also favored me with a description of his first wife, who lacked
all these qualifications, and was obliging enough to depart in peace
at an early stage of their married life, meekly preferring thus to
make way for a worthier successor. Mr. Underhill with all his
foibles, however, is on the whole a good man. He intends to take
Amelia's little girls into his own home, and be a father, as Martha
will be a mother, to them.
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