-rate care of me when I was so sick last
year."

"Mrs. Gerome is morbidly sensitive at all times, and at this juncture
I should be afraid to introduce a stranger into her sick room."

"When people are so excessively nervous about being seen, I can't help
feeling a little suspicious. Do you suppose that Mrs. Gerome loved her
husband so much better than the majority of widows love theirs, that
seven years after his death she can't bear to be looked at? I like to
see a woman show due respect to her husband's memory, but I tell you
my experience--or rather my observation--leads me to believe that
these young widows who make the greatest parade of their grief, and
load themselves with crape and bombazine till they can scarcely
stagger under their flutings, flounces, and jet-fringes, are the most
anxious to marry again."

"Stop, my darling sister! Who has been filling your tongue and
curdling all the 'milk of human kindness' in your generous heart? If
women refuse to each other due sympathy in sorrow, to what quarter can
they turn for that balm which their natures require? I never before
heard you utter sentiments that trenched so closely upon harsh
uncharitableness. Your lips generally employ only the silvery language
of leniency, which I so much love to hear, but to-day they adopt the
dialect of Libeldom. Recollect, my dear sister, that even the pagan
Athenians would never build a temple to Clemency, which they
contended found her most appropriate altars in human hearts."

"Pooh, Ulpian! You need not preach me such a sermon, as if I were a
heathen. Facts, when they happen to be real facts, are the best
umpires in the world, and to their arbitrament I leave my character
for charity. When Reuben Chalmers died, his wife was so overwhelmed
with grief that she shut herself up like a nun; and when she drove out
for fresh air wore two heavy crape veils, and never allowed any one to
catch a glimpse of her countenance. Not even to church did she
venture, until one morning, at the end of two years, she laid aside
her weeds, clad herself in bridal array, was married in her own
parlor, and the next Sunday made her first appearance in public after
the death of her husband, leaning on the arm of her second spouse.
Now, that is true,--is no libel,--pity it is not! Though 'one swallow
does not make a summer,' I can't help feeling suspicious of very young
and hopelessly inconsolable widows, and am always reminded of
Anastasia Chalmers.