CHAPTER XV.
'A wandering voice.' Though sheer and intelligible griefs are not charmed away by being confided to mere acquaintances, the process is a palliative to certain ill-humours.

Among these, perplexed vexation is one--a species of trouble which, like a stream, gets shallower by the simple operation of widening it in any quarter.
On the evening of the day succeeding that of the meeting in the Park, Elfride and Mrs.Swancourt were engaged in conversation in the dressing-room of the latter.

Such a treatment of such a case was in course of adoption here.
Elfride had just before received an affectionate letter from Stephen Smith in Bombay, which had been forwarded to her from Endelstow.

But since this is not the case referred to, it is not worth while to pry further into the contents of the letter than to discover that, with rash though pardonable confidence in coming times, he addressed her in high spirits as his darling future wife.

Probably there cannot be instanced a briefer and surer rule-of-thumb test of a man's temperament--sanguine or cautious--than this: did he or does he ante-date the word wife in corresponding with a sweet-heart he honestly loves?
She had taken this epistle into her own room, read a little of it, then SAVED the rest for to-morrow, not wishing to be so extravagant as to consume the pleasure all at once.