'Like yourself, dear, of course—but call me Lucretia. A girl has more freedom when engaged than before it; though the envy of her female friends, she can be more natural with her gentlemen friends, and may say many a merry and rantipole thing she dared not have said before. Goldsmith was right when he makes Dr. Primrose declare that courtship is generally a happier state than marriage. To me it seems to turn the butterfly into a caterpillar.'
Eveline knew what to think of these novel views, but she sighed as she thought of what her own existence was now.
'To me,' resumed the fair Lucretia, 'it always seemed as if, when the wedding-ring was slipped on my slender finger, I should have nothing left to live for; that my existence would belong wholly to another person.'
Eveline set down her tea-cup and looked at the speaker with something of mute wonder. In society she had met with many strange persons, but none who had such odd views as the mature chatelaine of Hurdell Hall.
'But you would have your husband to live for,' she urged gently, but certainly not thinking of her own.
'A very commonplace style of living, I should think.'
'Not if one marries for love,' said Eveline softly.
'As you married' (old was on her lips) 'as you married dear Sir Paget.'
Eveline felt her colour rise, yet she only said, 'But—but to marry with any doubt in one's heart would be deception.'
'Well,' said Miss Hurdell, raising her eyebrows, 'if a woman may not deceive her own husband whom has she a right to deceive?'