“They are his profession; she ought to feel an interest in them.”
“Come now, look at the question sensibly. Did Dora’s father bring his ‘deals’ and stock-jobbery home, and expect Dora and her mother to feel an interest in them? Do doctors tell their wives about their patients, and expect them to pay sympathizing visits? Does your father expect Ruth and yourself to listen to his cases and arguments, and visit his poor clients or make underclothing for them? Do men, in general, consider it a wife’s place to interfere in their profession or business?”
“Clergymen are different.”
“Not at all. Preaching and philanthropy is their business. They get so much a year for doing it. I don’t believe St. Jude’s pays Mrs. Stanhope a red cent. There now, and if she isn’t paid, she’s right not to work. Amen to that!”
“Before she was married Dora said she felt a great interest in church work.”
“I dare say she did. Marriage makes a deal of difference in a woman’s likes and dislikes. Church work was courting-time before marriage; after marriage she had other opportunities.”
“I think you might speak to Fred Mostyn——”
“I might, but it wouldn’t be worth while. Be true to your friend as long as you can. In Yorkshire we stand by our friends, right or wrong, and we aren’t too particular as to their being right. My father enjoyed justifying a man that everyone else was down on; and I’ve stood by many a woman nobody had a good word for. I was never sorry for doing it, either. I’ll be going into a strange country soon, and I should not wonder if some of them that have gone there first will be ready to stand by me. We don’t know what friends we’ll be glad of there.”
The dinner bell broke up this conversation, and Ethel during it told Madam about the cook and cooking at the Court and at Nicholas Rawdon’s, where John Thomas had installed a French chef. Other domestic arrangements were discussed, and when the Judge called for his daughter at four o’clock, Madam vowed “she had spent one of the happiest days of her life.”
“Ruth tells me,” said the Judge, “that Dora Stanhope called for Ethel soon after she left home this morning. Ruth seems troubled at the continuance of this friendship. Have you spoken to your grandmother, Ethel, about Dora?”