The increasing length of our accounts, the substitution of dishes leaning to Adelina's preferences instead of ours, and the more rapid pace of life generally under Adelina's exhilarated sway, led me to a very frequent revolving of that question, "Where will it lead to?" To a drastic change of some sort, I knew, but on whose initiative I knew not. Could I summon strength of will and courage to discharge Adelina? And on what grounds?—for being a paragon with the potential rights and privileges of a paragon? Must I lay myself open to the charge of not being able to live with my superiors? Of preferring the gratification of my personal pride to the comfort and well-being of my household? That, I knew, was the aspect in which it would present itself to Adelina, and in which she, in her turn, would present it to the world at large.
But it was Adelina herself (of course) who solved the problem. She took the bull by the horns, gently but capably. She broke it to me that she felt obliged to accept an eligible position that had been offered to her nearer the church around which so many of her constantly growing social responsibilities centered.
