Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/76

 I was afraid I should cry—truly I was—all the time.

"Alas! you are a man, and you cannot understand what I mean. But the ruby understands. That is the nature of a ruby: it knows everything about love, and something about a woman.

", Prisoner."

": I heard a story to-day. Senator Gray told it at lunch, and I meant to tell you it this evening, but, somehow, I did n't.

"A young medical student loved a girl, and became betrothed to her. (I like that word 'betrothal,' as I told you. Father knew a great poet, once, who announced to his friends 'the betrothal of my daughter.' Nobody ever spoke of that girl as 'engaged' after that!) So my medical student loved a girl, and—no, on consideration, he became engaged.

"You and I, if you please, are betrothed. But I am sure the fine and stately word would blush to own that man, though he loved the girl, after his fashion, and she was a sweet, womanly girl I know about the family. And so he went abroad to finish his studies on the Continent. There he dissected and experimented, and went through the modern laboratories, and came