She signed herself `` Theodosia Brooke , '' but otherwise there was nothing in the letter to indicate that it was written by a wife to her husband . At the end of a year Wesley wrote and once more asked her to go out to him . He was getting on well , and was sure she would like the place . It was a little rough , to be sure , but time would improve that . `` Wo n't you let bygones be bygones , Dosia ? '' he wrote , `` and come out to me . Do , my dear wife . '' Theodosia wrote back , refusing to go . She never got any reply , nor did she write again . People had given up talking about the matter and asking Theodosia when she was going out to Wes . Heatherton had grown used to the chronic scandal within its decorous borders . Theodosia never spoke of her husband to anyone , and it was known that they did not correspond . She took her youngest sister to live with her . She had her garden and hens and a cow . The farm brought her enough to live on , and she was always busy . * * * * * When fifteen years had gone by there were naturally some changes in Heatherton , sleepy and ; unprogressive as it was . Most of the old people were in the little hillside burying-ground that fronted the sunrise . Old Jim Parmelee was there with his recollections of four generations . Men and women who had been in their prime when Wesley went away were old now and the children were grown up and married . Theodosia was thirty-five and was nothing like !
the slim , dimpled girl who had stood on the porch steps and watched her husband drive away XXXXX morning fifteen years ago .
At about by in like of that to with within