The Vicars Daughter | Page 7

of the octagon
room where they were, and left him to meditate on his unkindness.

Vexed with herself the next moment, she returned as if nothing had
happened. I am only telling what my mother told me; for to her grown
daughters she is blessedly trusting.]
_Mother._--Then if you will have them married, husband, will you say
how on earth you expect them to live? He just makes both ends meet
now: I suppose he doesn't make things out worse than they are; and that
is his own account of the state of his affairs.
_Father._--Ah, yes! that _is_--a secondary consideration, my dear. But
I have hardly begun to think about it yet. There will be a difficulty
there, I can easily imagine; for he is far too independent to let us do any
thing for him.
_Mother._--And you can't do much, if they would. Really, they
oughtn't to marry yet.
_Father._--Really, we must leave it to themselves. I don't think you and
I need trouble our heads about it. When Percivale considers himself
prepared to marry, and Wynnie thinks he is right, you may be sure they
see their way to a livelihood without running in hopeless debt to their
tradespeople.
_Mother._--Oh, yes! I dare say: in some poky little lodging or other!
_Father._--For my part, Ethelwyn, I think it better to build castles in the
air than huts in the smoke. But seriously, a little poverty and a little
struggling would be a most healthy and healing thing for Wynnie. It
hasn't done Percivale much good yet, I confess; for he is far too
indifferent to his own comforts to mind it: but it will be quite another
thing when he has a young wife and perhaps children depending upon
him. Then his poverty may begin to hurt him, and so do him some
good.
* * * * *
It may seem odd that my father and mother should now be taking such
opposite sides to those they took when the question of our engagement

was first started, as represented by my father in "The Seaboard Parish."
But it will seem inconsistent to none of the family; for it was no
unusual thing for them to take opposite sides to those they had
previously advocated,--each happening at the time, possibly
enlightened by the foregone arguments of the other, to be impressed
with the correlate truth, as my father calls the other side of a thing.
Besides, engagement and marriage are two different things; and
although my mother was the first to recognize the good of our being
engaged, when it came to marriage she got frightened, I think. Any how,
I have her authority for saying that something like this passed between
her and my father on the subject.
Discussion between them differed in this from what I have generally
heard between married people, that it was always founded on a tacit
understanding of certain unmentioned principles; and no doubt
sometimes, if a stranger had been present, he would have been
bewildered as to the very meaning of what they were saying. But we
girls generally understood: and I fancy we learned more from their
differences than from their agreements; for of course it was the
differences that brought out their minds most, and chiefly led us to
think that we might understand. In our house there were very few of
those mysteries which in some houses seem so to abound; and I think
the openness with which every question, for whose concealment there
was no special reason, was discussed, did more than even any direct
instruction we received to develop what thinking faculty might be in us.
Nor was there much reason to dread that my small brothers might
repeat any thing. I remember hearing Harry say to Charley once, they
being then eight and nine years old, "That is mamma's opinion, Charley,
not yours; and you know we must not repeat what we hear."
They soon came to be of one mind about Mr. Percivale and me: for
indeed the only real ground for doubt that had ever existed was,
whether I was good enough for him; and for my part, I knew then and
know now, that I was and am dreadfully inferior to him. And
notwithstanding the tremendous work women are now making about
their rights (and, in as far as they are their rights, I hope to goodness
they may get them, if it were only that certain who make me feel

ashamed of myself because I, too, am a woman, might perhaps then
drop out of the public regard),--notwithstanding this, I venture the
sweeping assertion, that every woman is not as good as every man, and
that it is not necessary to the dignity of a wife that she should assert
even equality with