Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/275

 accident happened on New Year's Eve, I didn't expect much of Oliver; but I hoped, hoped, hoped it might make him a little bit serious about the children. It did nothing for him, nothing. All he wanted was to put it out of his mind as quickly as possible. Whenever I tried to talk with him about anything serious—or anything sacred to me—he simply wasn't there."

"Many men," I said, "are shy about those things, and feel more deeply than they can bear to confess. Perhaps you don't quite understand Oliver." I put in this plea, partly because I thought it was true, and partly because I was curious to know the depth of Cornelia's disillusionment and estrangement.

"Often and often I remembered, this spring," she replied evasively, "how my sweet old grandmother used to talk to me, when I was a girl. 'Marry a man, my dear,' she would say, 'who will help you not to be afraid of death or anything that can happen to you in this world.' And then again she would say, 'Marry a man, my dear, who has a sacred place in his own heart; and then everything that is precious to you will be safe; and you will not be alone in the great joys and the great sorrows that life has in store for us all.' And I