TEN YEARS AFTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4715, 5 August 1893, Page 3

TEN YEARS AFTER.

A SEQUEL TO "THE EVE OF THE WEDDING.'" '■*

■ (Woman.) I wish Jack had not forgotten his latchkey, I do so dislike sitting. up. I wonder whether there is anything exciting in the paper. What an interest men always Beem to find in it ! Why, it's the 16th of September, the tenth anniversary of our wedding day ! Of course Jaok has quite forgotten it, it's years since he remembered it, and I suppose I oughtn't to say muoh, since I didn't do so myself till I saw i the date in the Times. Dear me ! ten years ago. Why, I hardly I seem the sams person I was then. What ian absurd romantic child I was ! Somei how I thought that just marrying Jack would alter the whole face of the world ! for me; that I should never feel unhappy or discontented again ; that we should live in an eternal lovers' paradise, not I caring a jot for the great outside public ! I How I worshipped him in those days ; no man Could ever have lived up to the ideal I I had of him— the "substantial archetypal" man ! I used to thrill at the .very touch of his hand and tbe sound of his voice, and thought it would last for ever. As if it could; as if anyone could live in a perpetual ecstasy. Now Jack and I are the beat of friends and companions ; but I don't tremble at his mere footstep any more, and I am quite sure he does not think of me as an. idealised angel any longer. Of course we have had our quarrels. I don't believe any wife who cays she has never had them. We have trodden on each other's corns from time to time, and have been impatient and unreasonable ; but still we are friends, and something more. I wouldn't change Jack for any husband in the world; but you might as well expeot apple-blossom to always stay blossom as love to stop at passion height. I think we quarrelled most the first: year we were married, and over Buch silly tilings too. * * * ' Onoe I remember it was because Jack went to sleep after dinner, and I said it showed he no longer loved me. Oh! that was quits a Berioua affair !

And then another time Jack was jealous of poor old Arthur when he came back from India. It was very silly of him. He used to be rather jealous of my own people, too. at times, and then we had one quarrel when his mother said I didn't manage my servants properly, and was spoiling Harry. * * * Well, Ethel always was her grandmother's favourite, but he is quite my hoy. . I wonder if people would be Bhocked if they kn_>w I thought the babies rather a nuisance at first. Somehow, I don't believe women care for their ohildren nowadays so muoh as oldfashioned folks used to do. Still I wouldn't be without them for anything now. * * * I hope Jack won't be very late home from the Club to-night. 16 always seems Committee night at tho Club, and I want him to take me to the Jones's dance tomorrow, but since he's got stouter he dpesn't care "muoh for dances. Ah! Iremember when he did. * * * Ten years ! From twenty to thirty ; a few more and I shall be a middle-aged woman. When one's only twenty it seems as if it were impossible for that ever to come upon one. You feel a sort of premonition of it when you bacome aware how very few people ever call you by your Christian name. Except just Jaok and a few othera hardly a soul calls me "Helen" now, while as for "Nell" it's almost a word of the past. * * ■ *'■' I feel a little sorrowful to-night, and yet I have no substantial reason; lam sure my life is as successful and happy as most people's but the glamour and romance o£ it are, over, and even the most prosaic of us can't help an occasional sigh for the " days that are no more," the day's when love Beemed a rainbow, at the foot of which we should find that magical pot of gold. We get all sorts of treasures and joys, bnt we never quite reach the spot where that rainbow touohes the grouud. # * * * if i could only throw aside the present, and slip baok ten years, just for one foolish, delightful, palpitating hour! To be once more On one's wedding eve, with all Borts of trembling, misty hopes. I don't think men ever feel like this., * * * How silly I am, I declare there ■ are tears in my eyes. Anniversaries are rather like tombstones of one's past dreams I think. *.. * # Dear old Jack, I wish he had stayed at home to-night !■*."* * Well, I think I had better put on my dressinggown, and brush out my hair.