“Oh dear, no,” laughed Molly; “but I do think it right to make life just as pleasant to him as I can.”
“My dear, don’t you think women do too much of that? Isn’t it just as much a man’s business to see that his wife enjoys herself as hers to cater to his amusement? You told me the other day you don’t care for chess; yet you make a point of playing it. Why shouldn’t Mr. Bishop make a point of doing something you like?”
“I don’t know; but I don’t believe he would think of it; if he did, no doubt he would try to amuse me.”
“That’s just it! You are so self-effacing that it doesn’t occur to him. I am no woman’s rights woman; I don’t want to vote; but I do not believe in catering to a husband’s taste any more than he caters to mine.”
“I haven’t thought much about it,” said Molly slowly. “It just comes natural to me to do what I can to please Harry, but I don’t know that it is any credit to me, for I enjoy it just as much as he does; perhaps if I didn’t I might not do it.”
“Well, you are newly married, but later you will find you have made him thoroughly selfish; at least, he is a remarkable young man if he doesn’t get so. Look at Jane Carlyle!”
Molly laughed. “I love Mrs. Carlyle, and I am always surprised at the tone of commiseration adopted toward her. I think she thoroughly enjoyed ministering to her husband—why shouldn’t she? She loved and admired him, and it was her life work; and I think I understand such a woman well enough to feel sure she was happier drudging for him than she would have been with some smaller man drudging for her. All her letters, for the first twenty-five years of her married life, show that she rather gloried in overcoming her difficulties. I dare say she would have pitied some other woman doing the same things; but we all leave out, in thinking of others, the personal affection which makes the things we do and suffer for those we love a pleasure.”
“My dear Mrs. Bishop,” cried Mrs. Framley, laughing, “I had no idea you could be so eloquent. I think, at one of our meetings, instead of a reading, we will have a lecture from Mrs. Bishop, entitled The labor that we love physics pain. You haven’t convinced me, though, because my opinions are founded on principle, and the conviction that women ought, out of self-respect and for the sake of other women, to expect that a husband should sacrifice his tastes and pleasure, and consider it his duty to amuse and entertain his wife as much as she does him, and not consider his duty done if he provides for her and treats her as well as he would a favorite horse.”
“I can understand if people, man and wife, or brother and sister, begin to draw the line as to what is to be conceded and what expected, and what they do for those they love becomes a conscious self-abnegation,—that life under such circumstances may be looked upon as one of self-denial; but I fancy few really are denying themselves while pleasing a loved one.”
Mrs. Framley smiled. “You are the last person I should have thought romantic, but I see you are; talk to me ten years from now, my dear, and I’ll listen respectfully.”