As I beheld my uncle’s tears, I cried to myself: “Does a man marry for _this_? Does he soothe and sue, make presents, and receive them back, grow cynical, and leave his beard unshorn, laugh at papa’s stale stories, and submit to mamma’s acidity, for _this_? Does he take upon himself the responsibilities of a British housekeeper, write cheques for landlords, wrangle with tradespeople, be interfered with by his wife’s connections, hunt after monthly nurses, sit up all night with windy babies--to be made miserable in his old age?” Art thou a bachelor who readest this? I warn thee--leave well alone. Hast thou a landlady? Incline thine ear over the staircase when thou hearest her wearied husband enter, listen to her greeting, withdraw to thy one room, flop upon thy knees, and breathe thy little prayer of gratitude that the hat thou puttest on thy head covereth thy family, and crowneth thee lord of thyself. Accept this chapter as a tombstone, under which moulder the bones of an Experience. If there be no epitaph, it is because I choose not to write thee a lie. Ponder and pause, then go thy ways, moralising on the lot of others, and grateful for thine own. CHAPTER III. “How say you! do you not yet begin to apprehend a comfort? some allay of sweetness in the bitter waters?” _Charles Lamb._ It was twelve o’clock before I got back to my lodgings. I had done my best to cheer my uncle up, and certainly left him a great deal calmer than I had found him. You may believe he had asked me no questions about my visit to Thistlewood; the poor man could think and speak of nothing else but his daughter. For myself, I never seriously reflected how far I was to be considered affected by Conny’s unnatural conduct until I reached my lodgings. Then, in the stillness of my sitting-room, with nothing to distract my attention but the picture of my landlady’s husband, with a great moon shining solemnly in through the window, and all the trees breathless in the night, I could think. To think was to be shocked. What a depth of duplicity was in that child! Did I _now_ know why she hadn’t answered my letter! Oh fool, fool, ever to have given her a thought! For what had she encouraged me? for what had she simpered and blushed when I had looked and sighed? for what had she allowed me, that Sunday evening, to coquette with her hair and the rose? for what had she called Mr. Curling “that nice young man?” for what had she given me reason to believe that her heart was entirely vacant, and that, if I would be patient, she would some day or other permit my image to take up a permanent lodging there? I say for what? and echo answered, Sot! She had thrust me between her mother and herself, so that my elegant shape might hide from her mamma’s eyes the love-making she and that rascal Curling were enjoying behind me.