The Fallen Leaves

that his apprehensions were well founded. He was a little hurt, and he instantly revealed it. “I own to my shame that I burst out laughing myself,

manner. “Gently, Amelius! You can’t expect to persuade us that a laughable thing is not a thing

one is all in the order of Nature. The men have settled it so. But why the women are to give up so much soone

s hand. “Let us hear the rest of it, Amelius. Of course you went on

a sudden. She sank down on the floor of the fishing-house, and began to cry — not a good hearty burst of tears; a silent, miserable, resigned sort of crying, as if she had lost all claim to be pitied, and all right to feel wounded or hurt. I was so distressed, that I thought of nothing but consoling her. I meant well, and I acted like a fool. A sensible man would have lifted her up, I suppose, and left her to herself. I lifted her up, and put my arm round her waist. She looked at me as I did it. For just a moment, I declare she became twenty years younger! She blushed as I have never seen a woman blush before or since — the colour flowed all over her neck as well as he

had not forgotten the Rules of the Community, when two of

ia. So, you see, she was alone at home, at the mercy of the step-mother. I don’t understand these cases myself, but people who do, tell me that there are generally faults on both sides. To make matters worse, they were a poor family; the one rich relative being a sister of the first wife, who disapproved of the widower marrying again, and never entered the house afterwards.

g an interesting question to put. “Migh

d. “She was out teaching from nine o’c

complain of in that, as salari

ny of an existence without change. We lived in the back street of a cheap suburb. I declare to you we had but one amusement in the whole long weary year — the annual concert the clergyman got up, in aid of his schools. The rest of the year it was all teaching for the first half of the day, and needlework for the young family for the other half. My father had religious scruples; he prohibited theatres, he prohibited dancing and light reading; he even prohibited looking in at the shop-windows, because we had no money to spare and they tempted us to buy. He went to business in the morning, and came back at night, and fell asleep after dinner, and woke up and read prayers — and next day to business and back, and sleeping and waking and reading prayers — and no break in it, week after week, month after month, except on Sunday, which was always the same Sunday; the same church, the same service, the same dinner, the same book of sermons in the evening. Even when we had a fortnight once a year at the seaside, we always went to the same place and lodged in the same cheap house. The

vided for her amusement, on economical terms. And I reckon, if a married

rful that she said Yes, when he proposed to marry her? I don’t think it wonderful at all. For the first few weeks of the courtship, the sunshine was brighter than ever. Then the clouds began to rise. Anonymous letters came, describing the handsome gentleman (seen under his fair surface) as nothing less than a scoundrel. She tore up the letters indignantly — she was too delicate even to show them to him. Signed letters came next, addressed to her father by an uncle and an aunt, both containing one and the same warning: ‘If your daughter insists on having him, tell her to take care of her money.’ A few days later, a visitor arrived — a brother, who spoke out more plainly still. As an honourable man, he could not hear of what was going on, without making the painful confession that his brother was forbidden to enter his house. That said, he washed his hands of all further responsibility. You two know the world, you will guess how it ended. Quarrels in the household; the poor middle-aged woman, living in her fool’s paradise, blindly true to her lover; convinced that he was foully wronged; frantic when he declared t

y of sea and sky. All that they heard, all that they saw, was cruelty out of harmony with the miserable story which had just reached its end. With one accord the three men