The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1916-05-29
:. The ::
Confessions
of a Wife
PAT DECLARES HIS INTEN.
TIONS u

It has come, the very thing /
told you about yesterday. little
book, and 1t has come sooner
than l expected.
Yesterday my little nurse asked
for a holiday, which ! was only
too glad to give.
Annie promised to spend the
day with me, and Mollie brought
a nurse from the hospital to fix
me for the night.
l was almost sure that Alice
was going out with Pat, but I
did not ask any questions.
Do you know, little book, that
one of the greatest abuses bf
friendship is the assumption that
because you call q person your
friend you have the right to in
terfere with his rules of conduct
and to inquire into his actions?
What friend tells you is
yours as a gift of friendship;
that for which you beg, and which
is given to you almost always re-
luctantly, is not friendships gift
but something which is asked
often will surely break the tie.
/ expect, little book, IL one
should know all the confessions /
have told you one would think
perhaps that I was very CEN
surious of my friends and a
rather disagreeable person to have
around. But you know 1 never
censure my friends either to
themselves or to others, only to
you, dear confidante, do l say Just
what l think about everything
and everyone, including myself.
No one has ever heard me
speak i'll of another, simply be-
cause I do not believe l can Judge
what is good and what is ill in an
other.
As "the most interesting man"
said SO many many times, sit is
all mixed up" and to me there
is nothing quite so mixed as that
which we call good and evil.
Where one begins and the other
ends none can readily tell.
am moved to these observa-
tons, dear little book, by this
love affair of Pat and Alice.
1 Is it necessary for Alice to tell
him of her past?
VIII Pat feel called upon to
lay bare his past to her?
IL she does not tell him, will
che ouar fnrUat apd p,;I1 che n,
ways be in fear that some time
someone may tell him? Must
she always suffer for the mis-
take she made?
1t would not be fair, would it,
little book? And yet | am won
Idering If Pat is big enough to
say to her, Il have no interest in
your past except to know, as l
do know, that whatever expert
ences you have had, they have
made you more lovable. more
sympathetic. All that l can ask
is that you will let me share your
future-that you can honestly
tell me you love me-"
Sometimes l think, little book,
l have some quality of divina-
ton, for when Alice came in to
see me this morning she put this
little bit of Pats writing into my
hand with the query, Dear, dear
Mrs. Waverly, what shall l do?
What must | do?"
There was no formal beginning.
Pats note began:
you wish to tell me all. 1 do
not care to know
The things that have made up
your life
Before some blessed Fate hurled
me into it.
Think you I'd care to wed an
angel?
Thank God you're human,
And were 1t possible. I'd take
your hand and say
I love you more than l did yes
terday.
We're your life laid before me
like book,
Its pages open wide for me to
READ each line,
II turn away nor deign another
look
Beyond the place where 1t was
written
That you cared for me.
Think you l care for ancient his
tory?
For whom you loved, or what you
used to do?
AH that l ask is can you answer
me
That you love me just half as
much as l love YOU"
Goodness! little book, think of
l0ve-making Pat a poet?
Can it make Alice an "honest
woman"
(COntinued TOmOrrOw