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ririiiiiiiifii CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE ARE THE HIGH HOPES OF MARRIAGE EVER FULFILLED? (Copyright, 1914, by the Newspaper Enterprise Association) "Margie," said Dad, after a short j that you young women of today silence, "did Dick say anything to you about my will?" "Not a word, Dad," I answered. "Well, I left all I had to your mo ther. It isn't very much. There will, however, be my life insurance, which, of course, is hers. The home is also hers. I did this, for I want her to feel independent. I don't think there is any martyrdom worse for the old than a feeling of dependence. "Margie, my girl, be good to your mother. After I am gone she will not have much to live for, because she will feel as though she were alone. "I have always petted her, Margie, and since I have been lying here I have been thinking of her as she was when we were married. I don't think the girls are as pretty now as they were then. Even Mollie, who looks like her mother, is not as good look ing as she was at her age. "I remember her the night I asked her to be my wife. We were sitting outside her father's house on a large -piazza. She had on a low-necked dress of some kind of thin stuff. It was pink, and I could not help think ing that, where it lay against her white skin, I had never seen anything more beautiful in my life. "The moon was full and it was 'light as day, but with a silvery brightness that made the-flesh on her white throat and arms translucent. Margie, as I lie here with the knowl edge that the years have rolled away to the very verge of eternity, my thoughts will not dwell upon the married life not even upon our chil dren but they go flying back to that time when your mother was my sweetheart, the loveliest little piece of humanity that ever made a man's " heart beat faster. After I am gone remember this, Margie "Sometimes I wonder who will baby her in her little ways. I know view life so differently. Even Mollie at times seems to feel that her mo ther is a little selfish, but you mod ern girls don't understand that it used to be a womanly "virtue to be a little selfish, to accept homage and admiration." "Dad, dear," I said, and my voice was hoarse at the picture -that dying man drew of his youthful love, "I'll be just as kind -to mother as she will let me be. I know that our minds are as far apart as the poles, but 111 re member as long as she lives what you have said to me today." Dad reached out a trembling hand and I bent down, and held it for a moment against my cheek and then well, I had to leave the room so that he would not see my tears. I wonder, little book, if, when I come to the end of the way, my thoughts will go back to the begin ning of love? I don't believe that I have ever had the ecstatic feeling since that was mine the night before my marriage. I sometimes think that when one is filled with high hopes is when one enjoys most. A very pedantic friend said to me the other day that ma"ny people used hope in a wrong sense. "Ho.pe," he said, "means some thing you desire and expect. You can EXPECT something you do not DESIRE and desire something you do not expect, but you can only hope for something you both expect and desire." We women expect so much and de sire so much of marriage! Is our hope ever fulfilled? (To be continued tomorrow.) o o Branch D of Appellate Court hand ed down judgment against Lew Fields for $2,000 in favor of Eva Tanguay. Salary for one week in company. 1tfil'lffi mm