laughingly spoken of a wife as a good institution, adding, that had you
known how comfortable it was to have some one about you to think of and
care for you, you would have invested in the article before; and so on. I
am glad of this: I am pleased that my society has not proved repugnant to
you; for since it has been no annoyance in its first trial, I think we can
manage that it shall not be so in the future. I would ask, as an especial
piece of mercy to "your handmaiden," that you will grant her some favors
at the outset of our somewhat tangled fate. Please let me be your sister.
It is for your well-being the world should know me as your wife, and, the
Lord helping me, I will be a willing, faithful helpmeet to you, caring
most for your comfort and happiness, spending and being spent in your
service; never demanding or desiring your attention, except so much as is
due me in outward seeming; interfering with none of your pleasures or
pursuits, or thrusting my needs or feelings never before you. I have no
expectation of winning your love: it has been an understood thing from the
first--that is something neither expects from the other--therefore any
show of caressing fondness upon your part would be quite out of keeping
with our position. I have watched with some amusement, and a little pain
that you should imagine it requisite, your attempts at petting me during
these last two weeks. Poor, helpless man! it was a little hard to have to
pretend an interest and tenderness you did not feel. Will you let this
cease, with every other demonstration of affection, in our private
relations?

For the rest, claiming nothing from you, giving you nothing but the
services for which you render me a full equivalent, I grant you, as far as
I have a right to do so, the largest liberty of action. We are only
jealous of those we love: therefore all women will be as free to you as
they have hitherto been or their will accords, save that you have debarred
yourself for a time from offering any one of them marriage. I hope to be