and her dirty little boy who ate the pea-nut shells. I've no doubt
it was really a more tragical case. They looked dreadfully poor and
squalid. Why couldn't I have amused my idle fancy with their
fortunes--the sort of husband and father they had, their shabby
home, the struggle of their life? That is the appeal that a genuine
person listens to. Nothing does more to stamp me a poseur than the
fact that I preferred to bemoan myself for a sulky girl who seemed
not to be having a good time."

There was truth in my joking, but the truth did not save me; it lost
me rather. "Yes," said my wife; "it was your fault. I should never
have seen anything in her if it had not been for you. It was your
coming back and working me up about her that began the whole thing,
and now if anything goes wrong you will have yourself to thank for
it."

She seized the opportunity of my having jestingly taken up this load
to buckle it on me tight and fast, clasping it here, tying it there,
and giving a final pull to the knots that left me scarcely the power
to draw my breath, much less the breath to protest. I was forced to
hear her say again that all her concern from the beginning was for
Mrs. Deering, and that now, if she had offered to do something for
Miss Gage, it was not because she cared anything for her, but
because she cared everything for Mrs. Deering, who could never lift
up her head again at De Witt Point if she went back so completely
defeated in all the purposes she had in asking Miss Gage to come
with her to Saratoga.

I did not observe that this wave of compassion carried Mrs. March so
far as to leave her stranded with Mrs. Deering that evening when we