May Brandt has bitten into her apples of Sodom, and the taste of ashes is bitter indeed to her. She knows now that Brandt never loved her, and did love Alice. I do not know whether she thinks he still cares for Alice or not. May never had much beauty to lose, but she looks worn and unhappy, and watches Alice with a degree of feeling which would appear vulgar to me if I did not know just how miserable she is. She is hopelessly plain now, and Alice is still like a tall, stately lily. Brandt devours her with his eyes, but Alice makes him keep his distance. Sallie Cox has been diplomatic and harmless enough to make Alice forgive her, and they are quite good friends; but Alice is magnificent in her scorn of Brandt's wife, who almost cowers in her presence. Poor May! I wish I could take that look of suffering from her little pinched, three-cornered face for just one hour. But how could I? How could anybody who knew all about it? She does not understand Alice in all her moods and vagaries, and Alice does not condescend to explain herself even to her friends. I do not believe that Alice and Brandt have ever spoken on the subject which occupies three minds whenever they two are thrown together. Yet I imagine it would be a relief to May if she were told that. However, she is scarcely noble enough to believe it, even if Alice herself should tell her. But Alice never will. She never gives it a thought. Brandt, too, has honor, though, even if he had not, Alice would have it for him and forbid a word. It is a fortunate thing for some people's chances for a future life that there are a reasonable number of consciences distributed through the world, although it would be an Old Maid's suggestion that sometimes they be allowed to drive instead of being used as a liveried tiger--for ornament and always behind. It is a great pity that people who are supplied with them--and well-cultivated consciences too--have not the courage to live up to them, but allow themselves to be gently and feebly miserable all their lives. Now, Charlie Hardy has periods of being the most miserable man I ever knew. His last interview with Louise must have been as serious a thing as he ever experienced. He has married Frankie Taliaferro, and she makes the sweetest little kitten of a wife you ever saw. In Louise he would have been protected by a coat of mail. In Frankie he finds it turned into a pale-blue eider-down quilt, which suits his temperament much better. Louise Whitehouse is coming home soon. Her year abroad has lengthened into several years, and they have been the most beautiful of her life, she writes. "Living with a song in one's life may be the sweetest while it lasts and before one thinks; but to live by a psalm is to find life infinitely more beautiful and worthier. I never can be thankful enough that my life was taken out of my hands at the time when I clung to it most blindly, and ordered anew by One stronger and wiser than I."