Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/157

her last spring for a woman such as Fanny never saw in her life. Fanny has two children, and that sort of ill health which heartbreak creates in women, a disorder not catalogued in the medical books. Her family lost their property when her father died, and to-day I had her advertising cards. They set forth the fact that Mrs. Fanny Freer, masseuse, will treat patients at their own homes for one dollar an hour. She will also repair ladies' dresses, and cut and make children's clothes.

I call it Greek because she has not made any fuss about it, but has endured her fate with a terrible and splendid dumbness for which, again, as a sex, we are not distinguished. She is a little blonde thing, too, with a dimple, and a bow-and-arrow mouth, and always had more gloves than I did at school.

I have been ailing lately, I don't know just why. I wonder if I could afford to send for her a few times? It might be at least a comfort to her to come here, where she will be asked to sit at table with the family.

In face of a fate like this, how my half-grown troubles hang their heads! I seem to see them in a row, standing like school-boys punished for playing at Indian massacre. "You foolish fellows!" I say. "You are a shabby lot. There