"I took up then the first one--the diary she kept that first year of her marriage; and if I had felt small and mean and unworthy before-- On and on I read; and as I read, I began to see, dimly, what marriage means--for a woman. They were very poor then. Father was the grandson of the younger, runaway son, Joel, and had only his trade and his day wages. They lived in a shabby little cottage on Mill Street, long since destroyed. This house belonged to the other branch of the family, and was occupied by a rich old man and his daughter. Mother was gently reared, and was not used to work. Those first years of poverty and privation must have been wickedly hard for her. But the little diaries carried no complaints. They did carry weariness, often, and sometimes a pitiful terror lest she be not strong enough for what was before her, and so bring disappointment and grief to 'dear John.' But always, for 'dear John,' I could see there was to be nothing but encouragement and a steadfast holding forth of high aims and the assurance of ultimate success. "Then, one by one, came the babies, with all the agony and fears and hopes they brought with them. Three came and slipped away into the great unknown before I came--to stay. About that time father's patents began to bring success, and soon the money was pouring in. They bought this house. It had been one of their dreams that they would buy it. The old man had died, and the daughter had married and moved away, and the house had been for sale for some time. So they bought it, and soon after I was born we came here to live. Then, when I was four years old, mother died. "That is the story--the bald story. But that doesn't tell you anything of what those diaries were to me. In the light they shed I saw my own marriage--and I was ashamed. I never thought of marriage before from Helen's standpoint. I never thought what she had to suffer and endure, and adapt herself to. I know now. Of course, very soon after our marriage, I realized that she and I weren't suited to each other. But what of it? I had married her. I had effectually prevented her from finding happiness with any other man; yet it didn't seem to occur to me that I had thereby taken on myself the irrevocable duty of trying to make her happy. I have no doubt that my ways and aims and likes and dislikes annoyed her as much as hers did me. But it never occurred to me that my soft greens and browns and Beethoven harmonies got on her nerves just exactly as her pinks and purples and ragtime got on mine. I was never in the habit of looking at anybody's happiness but my own; and _I_ wasn't happy. So I let fling, regardless."