“I am going to speak to you, Doady. I am going to say something I have often thought of saying, lately. You won’t mind?” with a gentle look.

“Mind, my darling?”

“Because I don’t know what you will think, or what you may have thought sometimes. Perhaps you have often thought the same. Doady, dear, I am afraid I was too young.”

I lay my face upon the pillow by her, and she looks into my eyes, and speaks very softly. Gradually, as she goes on, I feel, with a stricken heart, that she is speaking of herself as past.

“I am afraid, dear, I was too young. I don’t mean in years only, but in experience, and thoughts, and everything. I was such a silly little creature! I am afraid it would have been better, if we had only loved each other as a boy and girl, and forgotten it. I have begun to think I was not fit to be a wife.”