o hide lodged with me useless. 'Now, as though you didn't very
well know what I have been doing. I have had a row of babies and brought
it up quite nicely.'

'_That_ isn't anything to be proud of.'

'I didn't say it was.'

'Your cat achieves precisely the same thing.'

'My dear Charlotte, I haven't got a cat.'

'And now--what are you doing now?'

'You see what I am doing. Apparently exactly what you are.'

'I don't mean that. Of course you know I don't mean that. What are you
doing now with your life?'

I turned my head and gazed reproachfully at Charlotte. How pretty she
used to be. How prettily the corners of her mouth used to turn up, as
though her soul were always smiling. And she had had the dearest chin
with a dimple in it, and she had had clear, hopeful eyes, and all the
lines of her body had been comely and gracious. These are solid
advantages that should not lightly be allowed to go. Not a trace of them
was left. Her face was thin, and its expression of determination made it
look hard. There was a deep line straight down between her eyebrows, as
though she frowned at life more than is needful. Angles had everywhere
taken the place of curves. Her eyes were as bright and intelligent as
ever, but seemed to have grown larger. Something had completely done for
Charlotte as far as beauty of person goes; whether it was the six
Bernhards, or her actual enthusiasms, or the unusual mixture of both, I
could not at this stage discover; nor could I yet see if her soul had
gained the beauty that her body had lost, which is undoubtedly what the
rightly cared-for soul does do. Meanwhile anything more utterly unlike
the wife of a famous professor I have never seen. The wife of an aged
German celebrity should be, and is, calm, comfortable, large, and slow.
She must be, and is, proud of her great man. She attends to his bodily
wants, and does not presume to share his spiritual excitements. In their
common life he is the brain, she the willing hands and feet. It is
perfectly fair. If there are to be great men some one must be found to
look after them--some one who shall be more patient, faithful, and
admiring than a servant, and unable like a servant to throw up the
situation on the least provocation. A wife is an admirable institution.
She is the hedge set between the precious flowers of the male intellect
and the sun and dust of sordid worries. She is the flannel that protects
when the winds of routine are cold. She is