shocked several years ago by having this trait of _forgiveness_ in
woman placed in its true light by an accidental publication in a New
York paper, which was intended to have just the opposite effect. It
was headed 'A Model Woman,' and appeared in the _Evening Post_--Bryant's
paper. With a curious desire to know the poet's model for a woman--though
the article may have never come under his eye--I commenced reading it.
It ran to this effect: A certain man in New York had a good wife and two
interesting little children. But he met and fell in love with a handsome,
dashing, and rather coarse girl; and the affair had gone so far as to
lead to serious expostulation on the part of the wife. The writer did
not relate whether or not the girl knew the man to be married; but only
that the two were infatuated with each other.

"As the story ran, the wife expostulated, and the husband was firm in
his determination to possess the girl at all hazards, concluding his
declaration with this business-like statement: 'I shall take the girl,
and go to California. If you keep quiet about it, I will leave a
provision for you and the children; if you do not, I shall go just the
same, but without leaving you anything.' _The wife acquiesced in the
terms._ Her husband went to California with his paramour, and tired of
her (it was in old steamer times), about as soon as he got there. Very
soon he deserted her and returned to New York _a la prodigal_, and was
received back to the arms of his forgiving wife. The girl followed her
faithless lover to New York, and failing to win a kind word from him by
the most piteous appeals, finally committed suicide at her hotel in that
city. The wife continued to live with the author of this misery upon the
most affectionate terms.

"That was the whole story. Is it possible, I asked myself, that the
writer of that article, whoever he may be, could have meant its title in
anything but irony? Yet, there it stood on the front page of a most
respectable journal, indorsed by an editor of the highest reputation. To
my way of thinking, the wife was accessory to the crime; had no womanly
self-respect, no delicacy, no Christian feeling for her husband's
victim; was, in short, morally, as guilty as he was; and yet a newspaper
of high standing made her out to be a model for wives. For what? Plainly
for consenting to, or for forgiving three of the most heinous crimes in
the decalogue, because committed _by her husband_. I