Saw HIM--yes--a love match." ("Two souls," etc., etc.) "Married and
emigrated to Kansas. Thence across the Plains to California. Always on
the outskirts of civilization. HE liked it.

"She might sometimes have wished to go home. Would like to on account
of her children. Would like to give them an education. Had taught them
a little herself, but couldn't do much on account of other work. Hoped
that the boy would be like his father, strong and hearty. Was fearful
the girl would be more like her. Had often thought she was not fit for a
pioneer's wife."

"Why?"

"O, she was not strong enough, and had seen some of his friends' wives
in Kansas who could do more work. But he never complained,--was so
kind." ("Two souls," etc.)

Sitting there with her head leaning pensively on one hand, holding the
poor, wearied, and limp-looking baby wearily on the other arm, dirty,
drabbled, and forlorn, with the firelight playing upon her features no
longer fresh or young, but still refined and delicate, and even in her
grotesque slovenliness still bearing a faint reminiscence of birth and
breeding, it was not to be wondered that I did not fall into excessive
raptures over the barbarian's kindness. Emboldened by my sympathy, she
told me how she had given up, little by little, what she imagined to be
the weakness of her early education, until she found that she acquired
but little strength in her new experience. How, translated to a
backwoods society, she was hated by the women, and called proud and
"fine," and how her dear husband lost popularity on that account with
his fellows. How, led partly by his roving instincts, and partly from