mails are slow up there, and it may
be a week before his answer comes. That will give me time to get my
instructions, and not be in any unseemly haste to seek them either. So
far, so good; but there is more to be done, and delicate work too, such
as will bear no scamping. It is the biggest contract you ever undertook,
R. T., and you must make a neat job of it.

XX.

APOLOGY FOR LYING.

If you do not understand my waiting for Mabel and the girls to prompt
this move, and allowing them to urge it against my apparent reluctance,
I ascribe this failure on your part to lack of experience, rather than
to any deeper deficiency. Some men like to make a parade of
independence, and to do--or pretend to do--everything of themselves,
without consulting or considering their womankind. But such are not the
sort I choose my friends from; for I have been accustomed to regard both
brain and heart as desirable appurtenances to a man. There is little
Bruteling, at the club, who would like to be considered a man of the
world--but I can't waste space or time on him. And I have met family men
even--but I don't meet them more than once if I can help it--who regard
their wives and sisters as playthings, dolls, upper-class servants, not
to be trusted, taken into their confidence, or treated with any real
respect. Such heresies have no place under a Christian civilization,
which has exalted Woman to her true rank as the equal and helpmeet of
Man, the object of his tenderest affections and most loyal services. It
is in his domestic life that one's true character is shown; and Home is
not only the dearest place on earth to me and to every one whose head is
level, but the stage on which his talents and qualities are best brought
out.

You think that I don't practice what I preach; that I introduce within
those sacred precincts too much of play-acting and small diplomacy, as
Jane says; that even at this moment my thoughts and intentions in a
matter which concerns us all are imperfectly revealed to my nearest and
dearest? Ah, that is owing to the difference between the sexes, and to
the singular lines on which the Sex was constructed, mentally speaking.
I don't wish to criticize the Architect's plans, but it seems to me I
could suggest improvements which might have simplified relations, and
avoided much embarrassment. The difficulty is that women, as a rule, can
neither use nor appreciate Frankness. Just after I was married, I
thought it