"You can help me in many ways, Janetta. You don't know how hard it is sometimes"—and Margaret's face resumed a wistful, troubled look. "Mamma is so kind; but she wants me sometimes to do things that I do not like, and she is so surprised when I do not wish to do them."
"You will make her understand in time," said Janetta, almost reverentially. Her ardent soul was thrilled with the conception of the true state of things as she imagined it; of Margaret's pure, sweet nature being dragged down to Lady Caroline's level of artificial worldliness. For, notwithstanding all Lady Caroline's gentleness of manner, Janetta was beginning to find her out. She began to see that this extreme softness and suavity covered a very persistent will, and that it was Lady Caroline who ruled the house and the family with an iron hand in a velvet glove.
"I am afraid not," said Margaret, submissively. "She is so much more determined than I am. Neither papa nor I could ever do anything against her. And in most things I like her to manage for me. But not my marriage!"
"No, indeed."
"Will you stand by me, Janetta, dear?"
"Always, Margaret."
"You will always be my friend?"
"Always dear."
"You make me feel strong when you say 'always' so earnestly, Janetta."
"Because I believe," said Janetta, quickly, "that friendship is as strong a tie as any in the world. I don't think it ought to be any less binding than the tie between sisters, between parents and child, even"—and her voice dropped a little—"even between husband and wife. I have heard it suggested that there should be a ceremony—a sort of form—for the making of a friendship as there is for other relations in life; a vow of truth and fidelity which two friends could promise to observe. Don't you think that it would be rather a useless thing, even if the thought is a pretty one? Because we make and keep or break our vows in our own heart, and no promise would bind us more than our own hearts can do."