When he had bored his friends for a whole year with anecdotes of the
deceased, an extraordinary coincidence happened. He met a young girl
of eighteen, with fair hair, and a striking resemblance to his late
wife, as she had been at fourteen. He saw in this coincidence the
finger of a bountiful providence, willing to bestow on him at last the
first one, the well-beloved. He fell in love with her because she
resembled the first one. And he married her. He had got her at last.
But his children, especially the girls, resented his second marriage.
They found the relationship between their father and step-mother
improper; in their opinion he had been unfaithful to their mother. And
they left his house and went out into the world.
He was happy! And his pride in his young wife exceeded even his
happiness.
"Only the aftermath!" said his old friends.
When a year had gone by, the young wife presented him with a baby.
Papa, of course, was no longer used to a baby's crying, and wanted his
night's rest. He insisted on a separate bed-room for himself, heedless
of his wife's tears; really, women were a nuisance sometimes. And,
moreover, she was jealous of his first wife. He had been fool enough
to tell her of the extraordinary likeness which existed between the
two and had let her read his first wife's love-letters.
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