Waiting

I am waiting for my life to begin. Ludlow is out until all hours with his writerly colleagues. I am lonely, except for when my cousins visit. The ladies in his circle not very nice, they ridicule my "country manners" and make remarks about Ludlow's youthfulness. It is true, he has a motherlesschildishness about him, which my own mother had remarked with some concern. I do not know what is wrong, but there is no chance of children yet, I think. I do not know how to begin. Meanwhile, I am sought out to be like a vase of flowers or an interesting decorated pot, or lamp, or some such thing. Painters have taken up with me, and they paint me to look like paint drying, it is so boring. Ludlow demanded the painter hand this particular likeness over, because it looks like I am naked. I don't mind, since the artist has made my nose and chin look as sharp as files, and I do not like the rather grim expression, which has become more and more the rule with me. My father has taken to calling me "his sad poppet," which I abhor. They ask a little too keenly how I am doing. I am at a loss whether to stay in New York this sweltering summer with Ludlow, or to go up to my parents where at least it is cool, and I can row on the river. Ludlow shows no interest in travel any longer. He was scandalized by our trip South, where the morals were so corrupted. He tried not to show me, but I overheard him telling Bierstadt about how men went about in public, in the evenings, with their mistresses in plain view, while their wives were at home; - no doubt with their lovers! Stupidly, the old ladies in Ludlow's circle accuse me of "flirting." One called me a "Dulcinea" and an "ensnarer," as if I would have anything to do with her old husband. She thought I did not overhear her, as she was talking behind her fan. So unfair.