_The Dangerous Age_




MY DEAR LILLIE,

Obviously it would have been the right thing to give you my news in
person--apart from the fact that I should then have enjoyed the amusing
spectacle of your horror! But I could not make up my mind to this
course.

All the same, upon my word of honour, you, dear innocent soul, are the
only person to whom I have made any direct communication on the subject.
It is at once your great virtue and defect that you find everything that
everybody does quite right and reasonable--you, the wife eternally in
love with her husband; eternally watching over your children like a
brood-hen.

You are really virtuous, Lillie. But I may add that you have no reason
for being anything else. For you, life is like a long and pleasant day
spent in a hammock under a shady tree--your husband at the head and your
children at the foot of your couch.

You ought to have been a mother stork, dwelling in an old cart-wheel on
the roof of some peasant's cottage.

For you, life is fair and sweet, and all humanity angelic. Your