O, my friends, that Time, by himself, with no
clever physician to help him, will surely cure. You all know that, do
not you? some wounds that he will lay his cool ointment on, and
by-and-by they are well. Among such, are the departures hence of those
we have strongly loved, and to whom we have always been, as much as in
us lay, tender and good. But there are others that he only
worsens--yawning gaps that he but widens; as if one were to put one's
fingers in a great rent, and tear it asunder. And of these last is mine.

As the year grows apace, as the evenings draw themselves out, and the
sun every day puts on fresh strength, we seem to grow ever more
certainly apart. Our bodies, indeed, are nigh each other, but our souls
are sundered. It never seems to strike any one, it is true, that we are
not a happy couple; indeed, it would be very absurd if it did. We never
wrangle--we never contradict each other--we have no tiffs; but we are
_two_ and not _one_. Whatever may be the cause, whether it be due to his
shaken confidence in me, or (I myself assign this latter as its chief
reason) to the constant neighborhood of the woman whom I know him to
have loved and coveted years before he ever saw me; whatever may be the
cause, the fact remains; I no longer please him. It does not surprise me
much. After all, the boys always told me that men would not care about
me; that I was not the sort of woman to get on with them! Well, perhaps!
It certainly seems so.

I meet Mrs. Huntley pretty often in society nowadays, at such staid and
sober dinners as the neighborhood thinks fit to indulge in, in this
lenten season; and, whenever I do so, I cannot refrain from a stealthy
and wistful observation of her.

She is ten--twelve years older than I. Between her and me lie the ten
years best worth living of a woman's life; and yet, how easily she
distances me! With no straining, with no hard-breathed effort, she
canters lightly past me. So I think, as I intently and curiously watch
her--watch her graceful, languid silence with women, her pretty,
lady-like playfulness with men. And how successful she is with them! how
highly they relish her! While I, in the uselessness of my round, white
youth, sit benched among the old women, dropping spiritless, pointless
"yeses" and "noes" among the veteran worldliness of their talk, how they
crowd about her, like swarmed bees on some honeyed, spring day! how they
scowl at each other! and _finesse_ as to wh