Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/50

pose, among a lot of bachelors. I should think he must be quite comfortable and happy.

The governors and the senators have gone, too. I have kissed Father good night, and sent Maggie away, for I could n't bear the sight of her to-night, and had hard work not to tell her so. And now Job and I are locked in. Job is asleep in his basket bed by the window; and when the June-beetles hit on the screen, he growls in his dreams, for there never was anybody so intelligent as Job; but when the moths come, they are so beautiful and so stealthy, he does not growl. As I write, they whirl and flit, and retreat and advance, and yield and persist, like half-embodied souls entangled in some eternal game. That invisible barrier between them and delight and death seems to tantalize them beyond endurance.

It is eleven o'clock.

It is half-past eleven. I have n't begun to undress. I think there never was anything worse than the weather to-night. I cannot get breath enough to think. Job squirms about in his basket, and sits up and begs like a china dog in a country grocery. I think he wants a walk. I believe I 'll slip out into the garden with him; I 've done it before, as late as this. The moon