And yet there is a great deal of good nature and fine feeling in Mrs. Restless, and half of her idle industry is due to her over-heartedness and her concern for the pleasure and welfare of others, coupled with an instinctive feeling of economy. She will spend a whole day and worry all her propinquious friends and relations in her endeavours to give away a ticket that has been sent to her for some theatrical or musical entertainment, in order that it shall not be wasted. “Somebody will be glad of it,” she thinks, and so any sacrifice of time and trouble must be made to find out _who_ will. Kindness and generosity are at the bottom of most of her actions, but there is too much of the vexatious atmosphere of wasted energy and frittered time. She will take an infinite amount of trouble for an infinitely small result, and invariably in the interests of others; yet her genuine friends sincerely like her, and her relations are fond of her, though they laugh at her follies, and amiably ridicule her untimely and misplaced energies and her magnificent muddling. Her children love her, though she wearies them with over-carefulness and excessive attention; and her husband, on the whole, thinks himself a very fortunate individual, though he certainly would be content if his wife were a little less busy and a little more idle. There would then, perhaps, be more calm and comfort in his home. On the whole, I feel that I frankly do not bear Mrs. Restless any grudge for not having fallen in with my matrimonial views years ago, when we were both in our teens, and I used to regard her enthusiasm about everything, and her ardent activity in the cause of, Heaven knows what, as something approaching the divine. And now I call it busy-idleness! Well, the illusions of youth give place to the illusions of age; but happily we have illusions always. Life would be terribly dull without them. Mrs. Restless is, beyond a doubt, an excellent wife, as in the long ago of my boyhood I thought she would be; but I am glad she is another’s. _THE SKITTISH OLD MAID_