Truth to tell, it was rather pathetic reading when he kept to the point, for love for his wife cropped out plainly between the lines after years of separation. Suddenly he began to adorn me with a variety of fine qualities. He assured me that I had
penetration, clear judgment, and a sense of justice, as well as a warm heart.
I was staggering under these piled-up traits, when he completely floored me, so to speak, by asking me to take his case under consideration, assuring me he would act upon my advice. If I thought he had been too severe in his conduct toward his wife, to say so, and he would seek her out, and humble himself before her, and ask her to return to him.
He also asked me whether, as a woman, I thought she would be influenced wholly by the welfare of her children, or whether she would be likely to retain a trace of affection for himself.
That letter was an outrage. The idea of appealing to me, who had not had the experience of a single divorce to rely upon! Even my one husband was so recent an acquisition as to be still considered a novelty. And yet I, all unacquainted with divorce proceedings, legal separations, and
common law ceremonies, was called upon to make this strange man's troubles my own, to sort out his domestic woes, and say:—
"This sin" is yours, but "that sin" is hers, and "those other sins" belong wholly to the co-respondent.
What a useful word that is! It has such a decent sound, almost respectable. We are a refined people, even in our sins, and I know no word in the English language we strive harder to avoid using in any of its forms than that word of brutal vulgarity, but terrific meaning—adultery.
The adulterer may be in our midst, but we have refinement enough to refer to him as the "So-and-So's" co-respondent.
I was engaged in saying things more earnest and warm than correct and polished—things I fear the writer of the letter could not have approved of—when I was pulled up short by the opening words of another paragraph, which said: "God! if