that I suppose
vulgarity ought to be forgiven her. I hardly know myself how I managed
it, but, somehow, I got the poor thing out of the room and the house and
into the cool night air, and then I talked to her, and fairly made her
be quiet and listen. I told her that Ned Temple had made love to me when
he was just out of petticoats and I was in short dresses. I stretched
or shortened the truth a little, but it was a case of necessity. Then I
intimated that I never would have married Ned Temple, anyway, and
THAT worked beautifully. She turned upon me in such a delightfully
inconsequent fashion and demanded to know what I expected, and declared
her husband was good enough for any woman. Then I said I did not doubt
that, and hinted that other women might have had their romances, even if
they did not marry. That immediately interested her. She stared at me,
and said, with the most innocent impertinence, that my brother's wife
had intimated that I had had an unhappy love-affair when I was a girl.
I did not think that Cyrus had told Ada, but I suppose a man HAS to tell
his wife everything.

I hedged about the unhappy love-affair, but the first thing I knew the
poor, distracted woman was sobbing on my shoulder as we stood in front
of her gate, and saying that she was so sorry, but her whole life was
bound up in her husband, and I was so beautiful and had so much style,
and she knew what a dowdy she was, and she could not blame poor Ned
if--But I hushed her.

"Your husband has no more idea of caring for another woman besides you
than that moon has of travelling around another world," said I; "and you
are a fool if you think so; and if you are dowdy it is your own fault.
If you have such a good husband you owe it to him not to be dowdy. I
know you keep his house beautifully, but any man would rather have his
wife look well than his house, if he is worth anything at all."

Then she gasped out that she wished she knew how to do up her hair like
mine. It was all highly ridiculous, but it actually ended in my going
into the Temple house and showing Ned's wife how to do up her hair like
mine. She looked like another woman when it was puffed softly over her
forehead--she has quite pretty brown hair. Then I taught her how to
put on her corset and pin her shirt-waist taut in front and her skirt
behind. Ned was not to be home until late, and there was plenty of time.
It ended in her fairly purring around me, and saying how sorry she wa