While Charlie Was Away

ow a baby, and see if I'm not right ; you've got horses and boots. What is so tiresome about me is that, as my face grows older my heart grows younger. All the blows which I've sustained during my earthly pilgrimage have left my powers of credulity unimpaired. I am always meeting somebody whom I think I could love. The somebody always has a previous attachment ; or else he sails for South Africa, or India, or the North Pole, a day or two after I meet him. Charlie doesn't count. What is the good of a husband who's a sailor, and who lives principally on the West Coast of Africa? Charlie is, I suppose, an able navigator?and yet he expects plain sailing with me! Well, nobody has got a chart of my mental make up but you, Bill. I've the most heavenly idea of friendship, but men don't like it. They either make love to me, or call on me once in three months and talk politics. I want a man who will run errands for me?take me to the play?save me trouble at every turn ?and dote upon me?discreetly. Now I find that if they dote they ain't discreet, and if they're discreet they don't dote. It's very discouraging. I tell Charlie that for me he doesn't exist. If one day in a fit of absence of mind I should marry somebody, there isn't a judge in all England who would convict me of bigamy. How can one believe in a husband whom one never sees? It would at once elevate a man to the level of the divine ! and Charlie is not a bit Godlike. chapter{Section 4Ever since I was ten years old...