ve always, God forgive
me, believed my work to be in some way superior to hers. I loved her
truly, but with a certain condescension of mind, as one loves a child
or a flower; and now I see that she has been serenely ahead of me all
the time, and it has been she that has helped me along; I have been as
the spoilt and wilful child, and she as the sweet and wise mother, who
has listened to its prattle, and thrown herself, with all the infinite
patience of love, into the tiny bounded dreams. I have told her all
this as simply as I could, and though she deprecated it all generously
and humbly, I feel the blessed sense of having caught her up upon the
way, of seeing--how dimly and imperfectly!--what I have owed her all
along. I am overwhelmed with a shame which it is a sweet pleasure to
confess to her; and now that I can spare her a little, anticipate her
wishes, save her trouble, it is an added joy; a service that I can
render and which she loves to receive. I never thought of these things
in the old days; she had always planned everything, arranged
everything, forestalled everything.

I have at last persuaded her to come up to town and see a doctor. We
plan to go abroad for a time. I would earn the means if I could, but,
if not, we will sacrifice a little of our capital, and I will replace
it, if I can, by some hack-work; though I have a dislike of being paid
for my name and reputation, and not for my best work.

I am not exactly anxious; it is all so slight, what they call a want of
tone, and she has been through so much; even so, my anxiety is
conquered by the joy of being able to serve her a little; and that joy
brings us together, hour by hour.

September 6, 1890.

Again the shadow comes down over my life. The doctor says plainly that
Maud's heart is weak; but he adds that there is nothing organically
wrong, though she must be content to live the life of an invalid for a
time; he was reassuring and quiet; but I cannot keep a dread out of my
mind, though Maud herself is more serene than she has been for a long
time; she says that she was aware that she was somehow overtaxing
herself, and it is a comfort to be bidden, in so many words, to abstain
a little. We are to live quietly at home for a while, until she is
stronger, and then we shall go abroad.

Maud does not come down in the mornings now, and she is forbidden to do
more than take the shortest stroll. I read to her a good deal in the
mornings; Maggie has p