' 'O,' she moaned out, 'you used
to welcome me at all times, out in the country, and thought me prettily
dressed.' 'Yes, yes; but this is Boston; and Boston makes a great
difference in one's ideas; and I'm going to be married, too. Come, I
don't want to seem ungrateful; we have had many pleasant times together,
I own it; and I've no objections to your being present at Christmas and
Thanksgiving and birthdays, but really I must draw the line there.' She
gave me a look that made my heart ache, and went straight to my desk and
took out of a pigeon hole a lot of papers,--odes upon your cruelty,
Isabel; songs to you; sonnets,--the sonnet, a mighty poor one, I'd made
the day before,--and threw them all into the grate. Then she turned to me
again, signed adieu with mute lips, and passed out. I could hear the
bottom wire of the poor thing's hoop-skirt clicking against each step of
the stairway, as she went slowly and heavily down to the street." "O
don't--don't, Basil," said his wife, "it seems like something wrong. I
think you ought to have been ashamed."
"Ashamed! I was heart broken. But it had to come to that. As I got
hopeful about you, the Muse became a sad bore; and more than once I found
myself smiling at her when her back was turned.
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