No, I assure you I was not thinking of any one in particular. The feeling returns with the season and is quite general. One could find particular applications, no doubt, very near at hand. Begin where you will: my brother-in-law Spenworth... I wonder what we shall be thinking of him in a year's time; divorced, remarried--and nobody one penny the worse! I am not ashamed to confess that, when the word "divorce" is mentioned, I am translated to another sphere... Groping blindly among things I don't understand and don't _want_ to understand... Say what you will, we were _not_ so lax a generation ago; those who fell remained where they fell ... or climbed back with effort, difficulty _and an acknowledgement of wrong-doing_. Not as of right... The new Lady Spenworth I hardly know; she who marries a man that has been put away... I have not refused to meet her, but the opportunity has not come my way. Whether she will be able to _hold_ him... Perhaps if she presents him with an heir ... though I have had to change my views on _that_ subject, as you know. Oh, I can speak about it now; and I shall never forget, when things were at their blackest, it was _you_ who came to me with your divine sympathy. I could tell you the whole story if you truly honestly would not be bored; _your_ discretion has been proved... I have lost the thread... Ah, yes!--the family... My nephew Culroyd--and Hilda? I am humbly thankful to say that there has been no catastrophe so far, though when the first, honeymoon intoxication wears off... Long may it be delayed, for they are the one bright spot in my poor brother Brackenbury's life. That pathetic child Phyllida is still breaking her heart over the cabman-colonel whom I, if you please, am supposed to have set against her in order to keep her for my boy. Thank goodness, she does not _know_ he is driving a cab! Breaking her heart or pretending to. And I really think my brother encourages her. He wouldn't send her _right_ away as I advised; and now he pats her hand and looks worried when she comes down _boasting_ that she hasn't slept. And Ruth does the same... I don't want to _bring_ bad luck by talking about it; but I sometimes wonder how much longer Brackenbury will put up with that--_invertebrate woman_; I sometimes fear that the record of the year will shew that there, too, the blow has fallen. We have seen to our cost that the most devoted husband and father may sometimes go apparently quite mad... I feel that Phyllida, with her youth and her looks and her money, is being so shamefully _wasted_...