Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/19

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CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE
7

A man wrote that, I 'm sure, but he was different from men; and no woman could have written it, though she were like women. I must ask Father to look it up for me. He is the most accurate quoter I ever knew, and I suppose I have his instinct for quotation, without his accuracy. I hate etiquette, barbed-wire fences, kindergarten cubes, mathematics, politics, law, and dress-coats. I like to wear golf-skirts, and not to give an account of myself, and to run about the grounds in the dark, and to get into a ruby gown before the fire and write like this when I come in. It is one of the nights when March slips into the arms of May, and chills her to the heart. I know two things in this world that never, never tire me and always rest me—I wonder if they always will? One is a sunset, and the other is an open wood fire.

Mr. Herwin has come in, and is reading to Father; the thick ceiling, floor, and carpet break the insistence of his voice, and it blurs into a rhythm, like the sound of waves. I don't altogether like his voice, and it 's more agreeable taken through a medium of fresco and Wilton carpet. Robert Hazelton had a pleasant voice. Poor Rob! But he was too short, and he is very plain.

Oh, that wind! It roars like a fierce, ele-