They Seem To Shed Around Them, From Their
Bright, Good-Tempered Faces, A Healthy Atmosphere Of All That Is
Homely, And Simple, And Good.
Looking into their quiet, steadfast
eyes, one dreams of white household linen, folded in great presses;
of sweet-smelling
Herbs; of savoury, appetising things being cooked
for supper; of bright-polished furniture; of the patter of tiny
feet; of little high-pitched voices, asking silly questions; of
quiet talks in the lamp-lit parlour after the children are in bed,
upon important questions of house management and home politics,
while long stockings are being darned.
They are not the sort of women to turn a man's head, but they are
the sort of women to lay hold of a man's heart - very gently at
first, so that he hardly knows that they have touched it, and then,
with soft, clinging tendrils that wrap themselves tighter and
tighter year by year around it, and draw him closer and closer -
till, as, one by one, the false visions and hot passions of his
youth fade away, the plain homely figure fills more and more his
days - till it grows to mean for him all the better, more lasting,
true part of life - till he feels that the strong, gentle mother-
nature that has stood so long beside him has been welded firmly into
his own, and that they twain are now at last one finished whole.
We had our dinner at a beer-garden the day before yesterday.
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