day by
day. Well! I suppose I shall be hardened in time, and learn to bear it.

"An open carriage has just driven by my window, with a nicely dressed
lady in it. She had her husband by her side, and her children on the
seat opposite. At the moment when I saw her she was laughing and talking
in high spirits--a sparkling, light-hearted, happy woman. Ah, my lady,
when you were a few years younger, if you had been left to yourself, and
thrown on the world like me--"

"October 11th.--The eleventh day of the month was the day (two months
since) when we were married. He said nothing about it to me when we
woke, nor I to him. But I thought I would make it the occasion, at
breakfast-time, of trying to win him back.

"I don't think I ever took such pains with my toilet before. I don't
think I ever looked better than I looked when I went downstairs this
morning. He had breakfasted by himself, and I found a little slip of
paper on the table with an apology written on it. The post to England,
he said, went out that day and his letter to the newspaper must be
finished. In his place I would have let fifty posts go out rather than
breakfast without him. I went into his room. There he was, immersed body
and soul in his hateful writing! 'Can't you give me a little time this
morning?' I asked. He got up with a start. 'Certainly, if you wish it.'
He never even looked at me as he said the words. The very sound of his
voice told me that all his interest was centered in the pen that he had
just laid down. 'I see you are occupied,' I said; 'I don't wish it.'
Before I had closed the door on him he was back at his desk. I have
often heard that the wives of authors have been for the most part
unhappy women. And now I know why.

"I suppose, as I said yesterday, I shall learn to bear it. (What
_stuff_, by-the-by, I seem to have written yesterday! How ashamed I
should be if anybody saw it but myself!) I hope the trumpery newspaper
he writes for won't succeed! I hope his rubbishing letter will be well
cut up by some other newspaper as soon as it gets into print!

"What am I to do with myself all the morning? I can't go out, it's
raining. If I open the piano, I shall disturb the industrious journalist
who is scribbling in the next room. Oh, dear, it was lonely enough in
my lodging in Thorpe Ambrose, but how much lonelier it is here! Shall I
read? No; books don't interest me; I hate the whole tribe of authors. I
think I shall look back through