"Yes," I said, "that's so."
"Well, Dick, I'm afraid it seems pretty selfish, but I do want to live my own way, and I do get terribly tired of—of——"
"Of the 'servant question,' for instance."
"Exactly."
"And you think you can live your own life with Woodthrop?"
"Why, I think he is very kind and good, Dick, and he says there's no reason why I shouldn't hunt, if I can manage with one mount, and we can have friends of mine to stay, and—and so on."
"Yes, I see. You will be mistress of a house."
"And, of course, I like him very much, Dick; he really is good."
"Yes."
That was how Lucy felt about her marriage. There seemed to me to be a good deal lacking; but then I was rather given to concentrating my attention upon flaws and gaps. And when I was next at home, at the time of my father's death, I could not help feeling that the engagement was something to be thankful for. A hundred and fifty a year would mean a good deal of pinching for my mother alone, as things went then; but for mother and Lucy together it would have been painfully short commons. Life, even in the country, was an expensive business at that time despite the current worship of cheapness and of "free" trade, as our Quixotic fiscal policy was called. The sum total of our wants and fancied wants had been climbing steadily, while our individual capability in domestic and other simple matters had been on the decline for a long while.