the least that kind of woman. She might have been
married ten years ago if she had liked. She told me all about it. The
last man who married the sister _meant_ to have Jessica.

"I say, there's a tragedy, Charles! To feel as you do about the woman
you want to marry, and to have to go through it with another!

"She's a splendid manager and organiser, and a devoted worker. She told
me yesterday that if ever she did consent to marry it would have to be
her father's curate; she would neither leave the parish nor her father,
she said. A lot of women would have been embarrassed in saying that,
and I can see the expression of your face as you read it. Spare your
gibes. Jessica is miles above the ordinary tricks and wiles and
falsities of women. You'd know it if you saw her. A stout,
strong-looking young woman in thick boots and short skirts; a
weather-beaten, serviceable being.

"It must have been for her sterling qualities those other men were in
love with Jessica. All the same, dreadful, doubtless, to lose her.

"I note your news of H----. I have cut off all relations with that
place. People there don't know where I am. Have forgotten that I exist,
most likely. Do not trouble to send me any further information.

"Ah, my dear Charles! If I only might do my work for the next world
after a manly fashion, as other men do the work of this! These women
won't let me. They are in everything. They meddle and mar and make
mischief. Half of the Fifteen (can you halve them?) are at loggerheads
with the other half because of words I am reported to have said. They
quarrel with each other, but, heaven help me! they won't quarrel with
me. They make me perpetual presents, they ask me endless questions,
they consult me in difficulties of their own ingenious making and
always cropping up. Half of them have husbands they might go to,
children to occupy their time. One is at least sixty--!

"A girl and her mother have been here to see me to-day. Mother
indignant, girl in floods of tears. Some one of the Fifteen had said
that the girl was 'running after' me. Me, with my thirty-eight years,
my fortune of a hundred and fifty a year! Can't you see my blushes on
the paper as I write it? Had her daughter by look, by word, by deed,
done anything to deserve that cruel slander, the mother wanted to know?
Then, was I not ashamed such things should be said? God knows I am
ashamed, but what can I do? They are always saying such things one of
another.