ad. And I'm sure mail-day seems to come round
quicker than any other day of the week. I quite dread Fridays. And then
your mother and sisters are always saying I never write. And I heard
from Mrs. Pryce Smith only this morning, telling me I owed her two
letters; and I don't know what to say to her when I do write, for she
knows nobody _here_, and I know nobody _there_. And we've never returned
the Ridgeways' call, my dear. And we've never called on the Mercers
since we dined there. And Mrs. Kirkshaw is always begging me to drive
out and spend the day at the Abbey. I know she is getting offended, I've
put her off so often; and Mrs. Minchin says she is very touchy. And Mrs.
Taylor looks quite reproachfully at me because I've not been near the
Dorcas meetings for so long. But it's all very well for people who have
no children to work at these things. A mother's time is not her own, and
charity begins at home. I'm sure I never seem to be at rest, and yet
people are never satisfied. Lady Burchett says she's certain I am never
at home, for she always misses me when she calls; and Mrs. Graham says I
never go out, she's sure, for she never meets me anywhere."

"Isn't all that just what I say?" said Major Buller, laying down his
knife and fork. (The discussion took place at dinner.) "It's the tyranny
of the idle over the busy; and why, in the name of common sense, should
it be yielded to? Why should friends be obliged, at the peril of
disparagement of their affection or good manners, to visit each other
when they do not want to go--to receive each other when it is not
convenient, and to write to each other when there is nothing to say? You
women, my dear, I must say, are more foolish in this respect than men.
Men simply won't write long letters to their friends when they've
nothing to say, and I don't think their friendships suffer by it. And
though there are heaps of idle gossiping fellows, as well as ladies with
the same qualities, a man who was busy would never tolerate them to his
own inconvenience, much less invite them to persecute him. We are more
straightforward with each other, and that is, after all, the firmest
foundation for friendship. It is partly a misplaced amiability, a phase
of the unselfishness in which you excel us, and partly also, I think, a
want of some measuring quality that makes you women exact unreasonable
things, make impossible promises, and after blandly undertaking a
multiplicity of small matters th