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CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE
GRAY HAIRS SHOW LIFE'S CARES.
As I named Dick and Malcolm Stu
art to each other, little book, there
was a quick look of appraisel in each
man's eyes as he apparently took in
the other's proportions, mental and
physical.
Both men were in the first flush of
maturity and, although both were
over the average in height and build,
Dick was slightly the smaller of the
two.
I suppose it was because .Dick has
been working so very hard that he
looked older than Malcolm in real
ity Malcolm Stuart was a few years
older than Dick. Dick was growing
a little gray at the temples and there
was the beginning of a crow's foot or
two at the corner of his eyes. His
lips were firmer and his jaws squarer
than Malcolm's.
"Why, Dick, poor Dick, is begin
ning to look old," I said to myself
wonderingly. For the first time it
came to me that the last year and a
half might have been as hard on Dick
as it had been on me. Suffering and
responsibility, however, had brought
to Dick's face something which made
him better looking than he had been
in his care-free youth.
Today his clothes were mussed
and wrinkled. They showed unmis
takable signs of his hot, tiresome
journey. He wore an uncomfortable
looking derby hat, although it was
late August, and I remembered that
"ie had worn that hat all summer.
"He has been too busy even to
think of a straw hat," I said to my
self, and somehow that foolish little
bit of what I know must have been
?reat discomfort to him made me
sorrier for him than the big worries
I knew had beset him, waking and
sleeping.
Strange, isn't it, little book, that
sometimes a silly little annoyance
will make us appreciate for the first
time the great hurts that have been
borne by those about us? Lost was
the ready smile that used to play
about Dick's lips, that crooked little
smile that I loved to coax out with
all sorts of childish play.
"Why," I said to myself in a kind
of wonder, "we have grown up, Dick
and I; the playtime is over. If we
hurt each other ever again it will the
terrible blow that maturity gives and
takes."
Dick's beautiful gray eyes have
rown dark and somber, and today,
whether from soul or body weari
ness, they are so tired he hardly
lifts the heavy lids.
A wave of sorrow passed over me
as I noticed this. Dick's eyes that
used to look upon the world wide
open and full of laughter were now
heavy looking and dulled with care.
As I write all this, little book, it
sounds as though I had taken a long
time to study the faces of the men
who at this critical moment of my
life and theirs were, meeting for the
first time. In reality all I have writ
ten was photographed on my brain
as a flash of lightning zigzags across
a hitherto darkened sky.
I saw, too, that Malcolm Stuart
met Dick squarely, face to face, and
the little "smile that I had often
watched begin at his .eyes and drop
down to his thin-lipped mouth the
smile that transformed his whole
countenance was illuminating his
face as he held out his hand to Dick.
And I, little book, stood beYween
the woman whom presumably each
man loved, the woman each man
thought loved him, the woman who,
married to one, yet had listened to an
invitation to go away with the other. -
It was a horrible situation and yet
we three stopd there interchanging
little social commonplaces as though
we were the veriest strangers.
Was any other woman ever placed
in such a position?
(To Be Continued.) ,
