I am very tired and it is late, so I shall write but a
short letter to-day, and that is the better for you, dear, as I am thoroughly
displeased with you and your cold, calculating, most truly unamiable epistle.
As for favours, whatever this tremendous favour that you dread to ask, be, I
suppose it will be granted—if it can. I have never
yet been in the habit of refusing you the sacrifice of every one of my feelings
and prejudices. In every instance you have done exactly what you pleased, and
nothing else; and my wishes, right or wrong, have been held tolerably cheap by
you; but this, I suppose, is to break me into an obedient husband by times. I
could, however, better away with that, than the manner in which you have
trifled with me in the business of delay. Why could you not at once have told
me, when you first conceived the idea in September, as I
remember by a conversation we had, that you did not mean to return till
Christmas. You would have saved yourself some little trouble and me very much
pain, besides freeing yourself from the necessity of stooping to something more
than evasion. But I do not mean to reproach you. I know
this is but a specimen of the round-
| BETWEEN CUP AND LIP. | 477 |
