widened between us! Oh, the _loneliness_! Oh, the _uselessness_ of life!

I _had_ to give it up. I wasn't enough of a hanger-on to sink into a
state of perpetual whining protest, or to commit suicide. When I was
finally _convinced_ that I _couldn't_ draw him nearer I gave it up and
began to take notice again, _of other things_. I _let_ him live his life
and I took up the _"burden"_ of my own "lonely" existence.

And the first thing I knew my "burden" had grown _interesting_, and I
was _no longer lonesome_. I began to live my life to _please myself_,
instead of living it for the purpose of _making over_ the life
of another.

The _next_ thing I knew my husband didn't have so much business
downtown, and he had more things he wanted to tell me. I found we were
nearer than I ever dreamed we'd be.

You see, I had become _more comfortable to live with._ I had quit
_trying_ to draw him nearer, and behold, _he was already near_.

In the old days I lived strenuously. I hustled so to get the house and
the children and myself _just so_, that I got _my aura_ into a regular
snarl. My husband being a healthy animal, felt the snarl before he saw
the immaculateness; and like any healthy animal he snarled back--and had
business downtown. He responded to my _real_ mental and emotional state,
responded against his will many times; and I did not know it. I supposed
him perverse and impossible of pleasing. I _knew I_ had tried my best
(according to my lights, which it had not occurred to me to doubt), but
it never entered my cranium that _he_ had tried, too. I looked upon the
outward appearance--my immaculate appearance, met by fault-finding or