g," Julia said, with a rueful laugh.
"But it's like being in a bad dream. There is sorrow that you have to
bear, don't you know, Aunt Sanna, like crippled children, or somebody's
death, or being poor; and then there are these other unnatural trials,
that you just _rebel_ against! I say to myself that I'll just be patient
and sweet, and go on filling my time with Anna and calls and dinner
parties, until Jim comes to his senses and tells me what an angel I am,
but it's awfully hard to do it! Sometimes the house seems like a vault
to me, in the mornings, even the sunshine"--Julia's eyes watered, but
she went steadily on--"even the sunshine doesn't seem right, and I feel
as if I were eating ashes and cotton! I go about looking at other
houses, and thinking, 'I wonder what men and women are being wretchedly
unhappy behind _your_ plate-glass windows!' I watch other men and their
wives together," pursued Julia, smiling through tears, "and when women
say those casual things they are always saying, about not loving your
husband after the first few months, and being disillusioned, and meaning
less and less to each other, I feel as if it would break my heart!"

"Well," Miss Toland said, somewhat distressed, "of course, I'd rather
walk into a bull fight than advise--"

"I know you would," Julia hastened to assure her. "That's why I've been
talking," she added, "and it's been a real relief! Don't think I'm
complaining, Aunt Sanna--"

"No, my dear," Miss Toland said. "I'll never think anything that isn't
good of you, Julie," she went on. "If Jim Studdiford is so selfish as
to--to make his wife unhappy for those very facts that made him first
love her and choose her, well, I think the less of Jim, that's all! Now
give me a kiss, and we'll go and pick out something for Barbara's boy!"

"Well, it may be a pretty safe general rule not to discuss your husband
with your women friends," Julia said gayly. "But I feel as if this talk
had taken a load off my heart! In books, of course," she went on, "the
little governess can marry the young earl, and step right into noble,
not to say royal, circles, with perfect calm. But in real life, she has
an occasional misgiving. I never can quite forget that Jim was a
ten-year-old princeling, with a pony and a tutor and little velvet
suits, and brushes with his little initials on them, when I was born in
an O'Farrell Street flat!"

"Well, if you remember it," said Miss Toland, in affectionate
disapp