Painfully sensitive, poor thing, to any change in my experience of the little world around me which it is possible to connect with the event of my marriage, Mercy questioned the landlady, in my absence, about the diminished number of my visitors and my correspondents.

The woman seized the opportunity of gossiping about me and my affairs, and my wife's quick perception drew the right conclusion unerringly.

My marriage has decided certain wise heads of families on discontinuing their social relations with me.

The facts, unfortunately, speak for themselves.

People who in former years habitually called upon me and invited me--or who, in the event of my absence, habitually wrote to me at this season--have abstained with a remarkable unanimity from calling, inviting, or writing now.
"It would have been sheer waste of time--to say nothing of its also implying a want of confidence in my wife--if I had attempted to set things right by disputing Mercy's conclusion.