"Met her two years ago in Boston, where I was suffering a brief visit
with my son-in-law's aunts. She was the sole widow of a large woolen
mill. That's about all I could ever make out--couldn't get any line on
him to speak of. The first time I called on her--she was in pink silk
pyjamas, smoking a perfecto cigar, and unpacking a bale of lion and
tiger skins she'd shot in Africa, or some place--she said she believed
there would be fewer unhappy marriages in this world if women would only
try more earnestly to make a companion of their husbands; she said she'd
tried hard to make one of hers, but never could get him interested in
her pursuits and pastimes, he preferring to set sullenly at his desk
making money. She said to the day of his death he'd never even had a
polo mallet in his hand. And wasn't that pitiful!
"And right now she wanted to visit a snappy little volcano she'd heard
about in South America--only she had a grown son and daughter she was
trying to make companions of, so they would love and trust her; and
they'd begged her to do something nearer home that was less fatiguing;
and mebbe she would.
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