COMMUTER'S WIFE 325 



straight-forward, open-paged Garden Boke ? 

 me who was to blame, the man or the woman ? 

 I fear me it was the silly, selfish woman. The 

 man was simply attracted by an older woman, as 

 many are, lacked imagination, did as he was told, 

 found his mistake, and shifted Dora to a maternal, 

 cousinly place in his regard as she had bid, and 

 thought all well. If it turned out to his own advan- 

 tage, who can blame him ? Dora would not have 

 been a good doctor's wife. She is too rigid. I 

 am sure that she would have objected to extra or 

 irregular meals, insisted upon regulating the social 

 status patients, and had a large and prominent door 

 mat, saying, " Wipe your feet " spread down during 

 office hours. 



Now having committed herself, her pride is 

 forcing her to go into training for a profession 

 she only half likes ; and I truly believe that the ill 

 luck that still clings, combined with the old New 

 England disease of unnecessary self-abnegation, 

 which father says is a curse left by the witches 

 the Puritans burned, will lead her eventually to go 

 to the children's hospital, and thus literally keep 

 a wound from healing by rubbing salt in it. 



Ah, me ! suppose I had hesitated about going 

 to England with Evan and put him off. Would 



