relief.
Looking at her Karen saw that she, too, was very tired. And she,
too--was it not strange that to-day she should see it for the first
time?--was very lonely. A sudden pity, profound and almost passionate,
filled her for Mrs. Talcott.

"You'll not mind having me here--for all the time now--again, will you?"
she asked, smiling a little, with determination, for she did not wish
Mrs. Talcott to guess what she had seen.

"No," said Mrs. Talcott, continuing to gaze before her, and shaking her
head. "No, I'll be glad of that. We get on real well together, I think."
And, after another moment of silence, she went on in the same
contemplative tone: "I used to quarrel pretty bad with my husband when I
was first married, Karen. He was the nicest, mildest kind of man, as
loving as could be. But I guess most young things find it hard to get
used to each other all at once. It ain't easy, married life; at least
not at the beginning. You expect such a high standard of each other and
everything seems to hurt. After a while you get so discouraged, perhaps,
finding it isn't like what you expected, that you commence to think you
don't care any more and it was all a mistake. I guess every young wife
thinks that in the first year, and it makes you feel mighty sick. Why,
if marriage didn't tie people up so tight, most of 'em would fly apart
in the first year and think they just hated each other, and that's why
it's such a good thing that they're tied so tight. Why I remember once
the only thing that seemed to keep me back was thinking how Homer--Homer
was my husband's name, Homer G. Talcott--sort of snorted when he
laughed. I was awful mad with him and it seemed as if he'd behaved so
mean and misunderstood me so that I'd got to go; but when I thought of
that sort of childish snort he'd give sometimes, I felt I couldn't leave
him. It's mighty queer, human nature, and the teeny things that seem to
decide your mind for you; I guess they're not as teeny as they seem. But
those hurt feelings are almost always a mistake--I'm pretty sure of it.
Any two people find it hard to live together and get used to each other;
it don't make any difference how much in love they are."

There was no urgency in Mrs. Talcott's voice and no pathos of
retrospect. Its contemplative placidity might have been inviting another
sad and wise old woman to recognize these facts of life with her.

Karen's mood, while she listened to her, was hardening to the iron of