kissed a corpse!

There is a mate for Molly! the mate she chose for herself!

So much for the husband. What else has marriage brought her?

Briefly I will capitulate.

A title--I am _my lady_. For three days it sounded prettily in my
ears. But to the girl who refused a duchess' coronet, who was born
comtesse--to be the baronet's lady--Tanty may say what she likes of
the age of creation, and all the rest of it--that advantage cannot
weigh heavy in the balance. Again then, I have a splendid
house--which is my prison, and in which, like all prisoners, I have
not the right to choose my company--else would Sophia and Rupert still
be here? They are going, I am told occasionally; but my intimate
conviction is, however often they may be going, _they will never go_.
_Item four:_ I have money, and nothing to spend it on--but the poor.

What next? What next?--alas, I look and I find nothing! This is all
that marriage has brought me; and what has it not taken from me?

My delight in existence, my independence, my hopes, my belief in the
future, my belief in _love_. Faith, hope, and charity, in fact,
destroyed at one fell sweep. And all, to gratify my curiosity as to a
romantic mystery, my vanity as to my own powers of fascination! Well,
I have solved the mystery, and behold it was nothing. I have eaten of
the fruit of knowledge, and it is tasteless in my mouth.

I have made my capture with my little bow and spear, and I am as
embarrassed of my captive as he of me. We pull at the chain that binds
us together; nay, such being the law of this world between men and
women, the positions are reversed, my captive is now my master, and
Molly is the slave.

Tanty, I could curse thee for thy officiousness, from the tip of thy
coal black wig to the sole of thy platter shoe--but that I am too good
to curse thee at all!

Poor book of my life that I was so eager to fill in, that was to have
held a narrative all thrilling, and all varied, now will I set forth
in thee, my failure, my hopelessness, and after that close thee for
ever.

Of what use indeed to chronicle, when there is nought to tell but
flatness, chill monotony, on every side; when even the workings of my
soul cannot interest me to follow, since they can now foreshadow
nothing, lead to nothing but fruitless struggle or tame resignation!

I discovered my mistake--not the whole of it, but enough to give me a
dreadful foreboding of its hideousness, not two hours after the
nu