"No; I meant to say—my choice of words must be poor—that it was possible I might be thinking too much of him; he is your husband, you know, though I do not think he is particularly interesting, or pleasing."
She laughed, as if highly amused, and said: "Well, about our dresses. You need a ball dress, so do I; for we shall have balls this winter, and if the children are well, we will go. I think, too, that you had better get a gray cloth pelisse, with a fur trimming. We dress so much at church."
"Perhaps," I said. "And how will a gray hat with feathers look? I must first write father, and ask for more money."
"Of course; but he allows you all you want."
"He is not so very rich; we do not live as handsomely as you do."
It was tea-time when we had finished our confab, and Alice sent me to bed soon after. I was comfortably drowsy when I heard Charles driving into the stable. "There he is," I thought, with a light heart, for I felt better since I had spoken to Alice of him. Her matter-of-fact air had blown away the cobwebs that had gathered across my fancy.
I saw him at the breakfast-table the next morning. He was noting something in his memorandum book, which excused him from offering me his hand; but he spoke kindly, said he was glad to see me, hoped I was well, and could find a breakfast that I liked.
"For some reason or other, I do not eat so much as I did in Surrey."
Alice laughed, and I blushed.
"What do you think, Charles?" she said, "Cassandra seems worried by the influence, as she calls it, you have upon each other."