During married life each has added to the vocabulary of the other.
When we took possession of the island, Nelly would glide into the jungle
like a frightened snake and hide for days. She was wild, suspicious,
uncleanly, uncouth--a combination of all the shortcomings of the savage.
Now she lights the fire every morning, kneads the bread, makes the
porridge and the coffee, feeds the fowls, washes plates and clothes,
scrubs floors, and generally does the work of a domestic. She is
cheerfully industrious, emphatic in her admiration of pictures, and
smokes continuously, preferring a pipe ornamented with "lead," for she
has all the woman's love of show. From the most quarrelsome and vixenish
gin of the camp she has been transformed into a decent-minded
peacemaker--always ready to atone for the misbehaviour of others, and to
display without a trace of self-glorification the virtue of
self-sacrifice. Nelly is never happier than when working about the
house, except when she saunters off on a Sunday morning, in the glare of
a new dress, and with the smoke curling from her ornamented pipe,
beneath a hat which, in variety of tints, shames the sunset sky.
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