has always been so real, could fling herself, and all for love of me, into the outer work of intellectual expression.  I have always, God forgive me, believed my work to be in some way superior to hers.  I loved her truly, but with a certain condescension of mind, as one loves a child or a flower; and now I see that she has been serenely ahead of me all the time, and it has been she that has helped me along; I have been as the spoilt and wilful child, and she as the sweet and wise mother, who has listened to its prattle, and thrown herself, with all the infinite patience of love, into the tiny bounded dreams.  I have told her all this as simply as I could, and though she deprecated it all generously and humbly, I feel the blessed sense of having caught her up upon the way, of seeing—­how dimly and imperfectly!—­what I have owed her all along.  I am overwhelmed with a shame which it is a sweet pleasure to confess to her; and now that I can spare her a little, anticipate her wishes, save her trouble, it is an added joy; a service that I can render and which she loves to receive.  I never thought of these things in the old days; she had always planned everything, arranged everything, forestalled everything.

I have at last persuaded her to come up to town and see a doctor.  We plan to go abroad for a time.  I would earn the means if I could, but, if not, we will sacrifice a little of our capital, and I will replace it, if I can, by some hack-work; though I have a dislike of being paid for my name and reputation, and not for my best work.

I am not exactly anxious; it is all so slight, what they call a want of tone, and she has been through so much; even so, my anxiety is conquered by the joy of being able to serve her a little; and that joy brings us together, hour by hour.

September 6, 1890.

Again the shadow comes down over my life.  The doctor says plainly that Maud’s heart is weak; but he adds that there is nothing organically wrong, though she must be content to live the life of an invalid for a time; he was reassuring and quiet; but I cannot keep a dread out of my mind, though Maud herself is more serene than she has been for a long time; she says that she was aware that she was somehow overtaxing herself, and it is a comfort to be bidden, in so many words, to abstain a little.  We are to live quietly at home for a while, until she is stronger, and then we shall go abroad.

Maud does not come down in the mornings now, and she is forbidden to do more than take the shortest stroll.  I read to her a good deal in the mornings; Maggie has proudly assumed the functions of housekeeper; the womanly instinct for these things is astonishing.  A man would far sooner not have things comfortable, than have the trouble of providing them and seeing about them.  Women do not care about comforts for themselves; they prefer haphazard meals, trays brought into rooms, vague arrangements; and yet they seem to know by instinct what a man likes, even though