And now what can I bring to her but grief and gray hairs?  I am dependent upon her for my daily bread; I occupy all her time, either in nursing or sewing for me; I try her temper hourly with my sick-man’s whims; and I doom her to a future of care and economy.  Yet I believe in my soul that she blesses me every time she looks upon me!

Thackeray says women like to be martyrized.  I hardly think it is the pursuit of pleasure which leads them to self-denial.  Men, at any rate, do not often seek enjoyment in that form.  If women do make choice of such a class of delights, even instinctively, they need advance no other claim to superiority over men.  The higher the animal, the higher its propensities.

Kate the other day was asserting a wife’s right to the control of her own property, and incidentally advocating the equality of the sexes,—­a touchy point with her.  I put in,—­

“Tell me, then, Lina, why animals form stronger attachments to men than to women.  Your dog, your parrot, even your cat, already prefers me to you.  How can you account for it, unless by allowing that there is more in us to respect and love?”

“I account for it,” said she, with her most decided nod, “by affinity.  There is more affinity between you and brutes.  It is the sons of God who find the daughters of men fair.  We draw angels from the skies;—­even your jealous, reluctant sex has borne witness to that.”

“Pshaw! only those anomalous creatures, the poets.  But please yourself with such fancies; they encourage a pretty pride that becomes your sex.  Conscious forever of being your lords, we feel that the higher you raise yourselves, the higher you place us.  You can’t help owning that angelic woman-kind submits—­and gladly—­to us.”

“Nonsense! conceited nonsense!”

“But don’t they?”

“Some do; but I do not.”

“Why, all my life you have been to me a most devoted, obedient servant, Kate.”

“Yes, I have my pets,” she answered, “and I care for them.  I am housemaid to my bird; my cat makes her bed of my lap and my best silk dress; I am purveyor to my dog, head-scratcher to my parrot, and so forth.  It is my pleasure to be kind.  Higher natures always are so,—­yes, Charlie, even minutely solicitous for the welfare of the objects of their care; for are not the very hairs of our head all numbered by the Most Beneficent?”

She began in playful insolence, but ended with tearful eyes, and a grateful, humble glow upon her face.  Its like I had never seen before in her rather imperious countenance.  I gazed at her with interest.  She saw me, and was irritated to be caught with moistened eyes.  She scorns crying, like a man.

“Come, come!” said she, childishly and snappishly, “what are you looking at?”

Of course you cannot have any idea of her personal appearance from memory, and I will try to give you one by description.