few worthless fish.

So I decided to put John to the test. It had been my habit every morning
after he put his coat on to go to the office to let John have one kiss,
just one weeny kiss, to keep him happy all day. So this day when he was
getting ready I bent my head over a big bowl of flowers and pretended
not to notice. I think John must have been hurt, as I heard him steal
out on tiptoe.

Well, I realized that things had come to a dreadful state, and so I sent
over to Mother, and Mother came, and we had a good cry together. I made
up my mind to force myself to face things and just to be as bright as
ever I could. Mother and I both thought that things would be better if I
tried all I could to make something out of John. I have always felt that
every woman should make all that she can out of her husband. So I did my
best first of all to straighten up John's appearance. I shifted the
style of collar he was wearing to a tighter kind that I liked better,
and I brushed his hair straight backward instead of forward, which gave
him a much more alert look. Mother said that John needed waking up, and
so we did all we could to wake him up. Mother came over to stay with me
a good deal, and in the evenings we generally had a little music or a
game of cards.

About this time another difficulty began to come into my married life,
which I suppose I ought to have foreseen--I mean the attentions of other
gentlemen. I have always called forth a great deal of admiration in
gentlemen, but I have always done my best to act like a lady and to
discourage it in every possible way. I had been innocent enough to
suppose that this would end with married life, and it gave me a dreadful
shock to realize that such was not the case. The first one I noticed was
a young man who came to the house, at an hour when John was out, for the
purpose, so he said at least, of reading the gas meter. He looked at me
in just the boldest way and asked me to show him the way to the cellar.
I don't know whether it was a pretext or not, but I just summoned all
the courage I had and showed him to the head of the cellar stairs. I had
determined that if he tried to carry me down with him I would scream for
the servants, but I suppose something in my manner made him desist, and
he went alone. When he came up he professed to have read the meter and
he left the house quite quietly. But I thought it wiser to say nothing
to John of what had happened.

There were others to