with people superior to myself and with the nicest of ladies. I was
pleased, for it was good for me, who had been tossed about from early
girlhood, and I was thankful for my home. But even when youth is past
life is still full of surprises. What a bitter thing is jealousy. If you
have one taste all that comes after is poisoned. That is the worst of
it.
YET ANOTHER PARTING.
My husband took care that I should not see or enjoy any of the pleasures
in the many societies to which he belonged. And with curiosity I
wondered why others who were not sisters of the order were going here
and there. I was out of everything. Then I began to have anonymous
letters, which I would not take any notice of for a long time. But when
I saw things for myself all was at an end. One discovery led to another.
About three years ago I let him go where his heart is. He was nice to me
once. I am not the sort of woman to be satisfied with half-measures. We
parted. I get my own living the best way I can. In all those trying
years of my life I only once appealed to anyone to help me. I asked him
if he could help, as I thought he was a good man. Some plan was hit
upon, and he must have had a share in the scheme whereby I have been
left to struggle in bitterness all alone. When people have come to me
and told me to say nothing about what has been done to me, and that it
is golden to be silent, how little they have known the pain that is in
memory when all we prize has gone. Some have tried to console me by
telling me that "they are glad they are not me."
I need not say that all this sort of sympathy is madness. I am happy to
say that I have the best balm for sorrow. I have a busy life. There is
something sad in the kind of friendships that have to be watched by the
inquisitive who sit down and write about their suspicions to destroy
other people's lives. I could not bend to all without some resistance. I
was baffled at every turn. This "sisterly and brotherly" may be very
innocent, and if I had been allowed to go to some of the public
gatherings I would not have been so jealous.
We make environment and get blocked. Do not reproach me with
ingratitude, but I am at war sometimes with my long life of toil now I
am by myself alone. "Words, words, words." Some things are too hard
either to write about or to speak of.
J. L. Bonython & Co., Printers, "The Advertiser" Office, Adelaide.
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|Transcriber's note: |
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|Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. |
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