"You are right, John; see how quickly I give in to you. I will tell you why, sir—because it is a wife's duty. You will never find me behindhand in that. Our honeymoon! How nicely you said it. There shall be nothing but sunshine and flowers, and the singing of birds, and love. Oh, what a happy, happy time! And you are no longer angry with me that I have engaged Annette?"
"I am not angry with you at all."
"John," she said, shaking her finger playfully at me, "that is an evasion, and you mustn't set me bad examples. Answer my question immediately, sir."
"Well, Barbara, so long as she does not bring discord between us——"
She stopped me with a kiss. "No, John, that will not do—it really will not do, you bad boy. You mustn't take unreasonable antipathies to people. A lady's-maid has a great deal to put up with, and mistresses are often very trying. There, you see, I don't spare myself—oh, no, I am a very just person, and I like every one to be justly treated. Say at once, sir, that you are no longer angry with me for engaging Annette."
Mistrusting the woman as I did, I was forced, for the sake of peace, to express approval of her. Barbara clapped her hands, and declared we should be quite a happy family.
It was after this interview that Barbara had a religious fit. Twice a day she went to the Madeleine, and spent an hour there upon her knees. Sometimes Annette accompanied her, sometimes I, upon her invitation. I asked her why she, a Protestant, frequented a Catholic place of worship.
"What does it matter, the place?" she asked, in return, speaking in a gentle tone. "It does one good to pray. Even to kneel in such a temple without saying a prayer strengthens one's soul. Through the solemn silence, broken now and then by a sob from some poor woman's broken heart, a message comes from God. Women are greatly to be pitied, John."
"Men, too, sometimes," I said.
"Oh, no," she answered, quickly, "there is no comparison."