Besides, it was more in her nature and in the circumstances of her life that she should become a woman of business and a woman of the world rather than a reader of books—one who grew to thoroughly understand life as it presented itself to her; and men and women, and especially children; and the management of a large and much frequented house; for they soon moved away from Southampton Row.
She quickly arrived at a complete mastery of all such science as this—and it is a science; such a mastery as I have never seen surpassed by any other woman, of whatever world. She would have made a splendid Marchioness of Whitby, this daughter of a low-comedy John Gilpin; she would have beaten the Whitby record!
She developed into a woman of the world in the best sense—full of sympathy, full of observation and quick understanding of others' needs and thoughts and feelings; absolutely sincere, of a constant and even temper, and a cheerfulness that never failed—the result of her splendid health; without caprice, without a spark of vanity, without selfishness of any kind—generous, open-handed, charitable to a fault; always taking the large and generous view of everything and everybody; a little impulsive perhaps, but not often having to regret her impulses; of unwearied devotion to her husband, and capable of any heroism or self-sacrifice for his sake; of that I feel sure.
No one is perfect, of course. Unfortunately, she was apt to be somewhat jealous at first of his singularly catholic and very frankly expressed admiration of every opposite type of female beauty; but she soon grew to see that there was safety in numbers, and she was made to feel in time that her own type was the arch-type of all in his eyes, and herself the arch-representative of that type in his heart.
She was also jealous in her friendships, and was not happy unless constantly assured of her friends' warm love—Ida's, mine, even that of her own father and mother. Good heavens! had ever a woman less cause for doubt or complaint on that score!
Then, like all extremely conscientious people who always know their own mind and do their very best, she did not like to be found fault with; she secretly found such fault with herself that she thought that was fault-finding enough. Also, she was somewhat rigid in sticking to the ways she thought were right, and in the selection of these ways she was not always quite infallible. On a les défauts de ses qualités; and a little obstinacy is often the fault of a very noble quality indeed!
Though somewhat shy and standoffish during the first year or two of her married life, she soon became "joliment dégourdie," as Barty called it; and I can scarcely conceive any position in which she would have been awkward or embarrassed for a moment, so ready was she always with just the right thing to say—or to withhold, if silence were better than speech; and her fit and proper place in the world as a great man's wife—and a good and beautiful woman—was always conceded to her with due honor, even by the most impertinent among the highly placed of her own sex, without any necessity for self-assertion on her part whatever—without assumption of any kind.
It was a strange and peculiar personal ascendency she managed to exert with so little effort, an ascendency partly physical, no doubt; and the practice of it had begun in the West End emporium of the "Universal Fur Company, Limited."
How admirably she filled the high and arduous position of wife to such a man as Barty Josselin is well known to the world at large. It was no sinecure! But