[61] ... I do not pretend to be adept at the psychology of human
beings, but to even the most astute it must have been obvious that
in the sunshine of her happiness with my brother Henriette Simpson’s
personality blossomed out into something almost unrecognizable from
the Henriette we had known before. All her self-assurance, her prim
restraint, her inhibited, timid little ways dissolved. She basked
frankly and even a little lazily in the warmth of her new estate. She
delivered herself up to the luxury of permitting her husband to wait
upon her. She became a purring, pussy sort of little person, glorying
in the relaxation of her happiness.
My daughter Paula always used to say that mirth was born in Henriette
the day of her wedding. For a positive fact, it did seem to all of us
that there rippled through her, dating from that time, a stream of
good-humored and irreverent levity that was to amaze and delight Henry
for the remainder of what was to be their singularly happy and by no
means brief life together.
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
_Chapter Thirty-eight_