Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
be a man’s wife for thirty-two years without finding out thirty-two thousand little peculiarities about him. I had spoken about the winter underclothing already. . . I gave her the prescription for his tonic and told her where to have it made up and when he must be forced to take it—the symptoms, danger-signals. . . My dear, I talk frankly to you and I sometimes fear that you must think me terribly sordid, but truly honestly, if one neglects small things, one neglects everything. You may fancy that there is little difference between two shillings and half-a-crown on a bottle of medicine, but, when you take the medicine for half the year and multiply the difference by twenty-six,—thirteen shillings! Multiply that one item of medicine by half a hundred things. . . I am not very enthusiastically supported; at dinner it is always “Why don’t we ever have this or that?,” when this or that is out of season and prohibitive; even Will rounded on me once and said that his poor old mother had reduced meanness to a fine art. I had to bite my lip! From Will. . . I told poor little Mrs. Templedown everything; and, if you say that I failed in loyalty to Arthur, I can only answer that the end must justify the means and that I am content to be judged by results.
“And now,” I said, “I can only wish you
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