Frank went upstairs, and returned with a volume in his hand.

’When you have finished the ‘Life,’ you must read this, dear.’

‘What is it?’

’It is her letters.  They were arranged for publication after her death, while her husband was still alive.  You know that—­’

’Please take it for granted, darling, that I know nothing.  It is so jolly to have some one before whom it is not necessary to keep up appearances.  Now, begin at the beginning and go ahead.’  She pillowed her head luxuriously against his knees.

’There’s nothing to tell—­or very little.  As you say, they had their troubles in life.  The lady could take particularly good care of herself, I believe.  She had a tongue like a lancet when she chose to use it.  He, poor chap, was all liver and nerves, porridge-poisoned in his youth.  No children to take the angles off them.  Half a dozen little buffer states would have kept them at peace.  However, to hark back to what I was about to say, he outlived her by fifteen years or so.  During that time he collected these letters, and he has annotated them.  You can read those notes here, and the man who wrote those notes loved his wife and cherished her memory, if ever a man did upon earth.’

The graceful head beside his knee shook impatiently.

’What is the use of that to the poor dead woman?  Why could not he show his love by kindness and thought for her while she was alive?’

’I tell you, Maude, there were two sides to that.  Don’t be so prejudiced!  And remember that no one has ever blamed Carlyle as bitterly as he has blamed himself.  I could read you bits of these notes—­’

‘Well, do.’

’Here’s the first letter, in which she is talking about how they first moved into the house at Cheyne Row.  They spent their early years in Scotland, you know, and he was a man going on to the forties when he came to London.  The success of Sartor Resartus encouraged them to the step.  Her letter describes all the incoming.  Here is his comment, written after her death:  “In about a week all was swept and garnished, fairly habitable; and continued incessantly to get itself polished, civilised, and beautified to a degree that surprised one.  I have elsewhere alluded to all that, and to my little Jeannie’s conduct of it; heroic, lovely, pathetic, mournfully beautiful as in the light of Eternity that little scene of time now looks to me.  From birth upwards she had lived in opulence, and now became poor for me—­so nobly poor.  No such house for beautiful thrift, quiet, spontaneous, nay, as it were, unconscious minimum of money reconciled to human comfort and human dignity, have I anywhere looked upon where I have been.”  Now, Maude, did that man appreciate his wife?’

But the obstinate head still shook.

‘Words, words,’ said she.

’Yes, but words with the ring of truth in them.  Can’t you tell real feeling from sham?  I don’t believe women can, or they would not be so often taken in.  Here’s the heading of the next letter:  “Mournfully beautiful is this letter to me, a clear little household light shining pure and brilliant in the dark obstructive places of the past”—­a little later comes the note:  “Oh my poor little woman—­ become poor for me."’