Here are Ladies

fearful of the prolonged conversation which would stretch from the day of marriage, down the interminable vistas, to his death, and,

ame, first, impatient, then bored, and, finally, sulky or ill-mannered.-"With men," said he, "one can talk or be silent as one wishes, for between them there is a community of understanding which turns the occasional

cooed and sang to him at times like the soft ringdove calling to its mate, and, at times again, it gurgled and piped like a thrush happy in the sunlight. The infinite variation of her tone astonished and delighted him, and if it could have remained something as dexterous and impersonal as a wind he

atched it from him; to pluck a theory hot from the stating, and expand it until it was as iridescent and, perhaps, as thin as a soap-bubble: to light up and vivify a weighty conversation until the majestic thing sparkled and glanced like a jewel-these things he could not do, and he knew it.

hatter could burst with a mouthful of puns or ridicule, or a reminiscence caught on the wing and hurled apropos to the very centre of discussion. His own means of conveying or gathering information was that whereby one p

nities for that familiar discussion to which he was a stranger. There were breakfast-tables, dinner-tables, tea-tables, and, between these, there might be introduced those preposterous other tables which women invent for no purpose unless it be that of making talk. His own breakfast, dinner, and tea-tables had been solitary ones, whereat he lounged with a ne

nd tried to reconstruct her recent conversations.-He was amazed at the little he could remember. "I, I, I, we, we, we, this shop, that shop, Aunt Elsa, and chocolates." She had mentioned all these things on the previous day, but she did not seem to have said anything memorable about them, and, so far as he could recollect, he had said nothing in reply but "Oh, yes" and "To be sure!" Coul

garious state of wedlock, but he not only could not, but must not, do so, and he meditated an appeal to his bride to release him from the contract. Several times the meditation almost became audible, but always, just as he toppl

e to himself. Furthermore, certain obscure emotions rendered him unwilling to be sundered from this girl.-There was the touch of her hand; more, the touch of her lips given bravely and with ready modesty-a contact not lightly to be relinquished. He did not believe he could ever weary of looking at her eyes: they were grey, widely open, and of a kindness s

r. Her indignant curiosity may be appeased only by the excuse that you like some other woman better, and although she may hate

about at any moment if one were not ambitiously particular. With inanimate objects one could speak of shape and colour and usefulness. Animate objects had, beside these, movements and aptitudes for eating and drinking, playing and quarrelling. Artistic things were well or badly executed, and were also capable of an inter-comparison which c

explanatory that intelligence could not peer through the mist or could only divine that these hated their wives. One man held that all domestic matters should be left entirely to the wife and that talking was a domestic matter. Another said that the words "yes, no, and why" would safeguard a man through any labyr

sought diligently for something to speak about-the characteristics of objects! There were objects and to spare, but he

face in her muff, and her s

nstant. He eased his husky throat, and the

crying for, my

othered by th

arling," said she,