Slowly he opened the door. The flowers fell from his hand! Was that attenuated, stiffened form his own, warm-hearted, bright-eyed, gallant young brother?
“Reproach?”
Oh, Walter, there is no “reproach” like that passionless upturned face; no words so crushing as the silence of those breathless lips; no misery like the thought that those we have injured are forever blind to our gushing tears, and deaf to our sobs of repentance.
CURIOUS THINGS.
Curious: The exaggerated anxiety of wives to see the women who were formerly loved by their husbands.—Exchange.
Well, yes—rather curious; there are a great many curious things in this world. Curious, your husband always perceives that you are “sitting in a draft,” whenever one of your old lovers approaches you in a concert room; curious he insists upon knowing who gave you that pretty gold ring on your little finger; curious that you can never open a package of old letters, without having his married eyes peeping over your shoulder; curious he never allows you to ride on horseback, though everybody says you have just the figure for it; curious he always sends his partner on all the little business trips of the firm; curious such an ugly frown comes over his face when he sees certain cabalistic marks in a masculine hand, in the margin of your favorite poet; curious that he will not let you name your youngest boy Harry, unless you tell him your confidential reasons; curious he is always most gracious to the most uninteresting men who visit the house; and very curious, and decidedly disagreeable, that whenever you ask him for money, he is so busy reading the newspaper that he can’t hear you.