"Why don't you have some plants around?" Maurice suggested; "they'd give you something to do! I saw a lot of hyacinths growing in glasses, once; I'll buy some bulbs for you."
"Oh, I'm one of the people flowers won't grow for," she said.
Mrs. Newbolt made a suggestion, too. "Pity you can't have Bingo to keep you company. That's what comes of boarding. I knew a woman who boarded, and she lost her teeth. Chambermaid threw 'em away. Come in and see me any evening when Maurice is out."
As Maurice was frequently out, the invitation was sometimes accepted, and it was on one of these occasions that Mrs. Newbolt, spreading out her cards on the green baize of her solitaire table with fat, beringed hands, made her suggestion:
"Eleanor, you've aged. I believe you're unhappy?"
"No, I'm not! Why should I be?"
"Well, I wouldn't blame you if you were," Mrs. Newbolt said. "'Course you'd have brought it on yourself; I could have told you what to expect! Your dear uncle Thomas used to say that, after a thing happened, I was the one to tell people that they might have expected it. You see, I made a point of bein' intelligent; of course I wasn't too intelligent. A man doesn't like that. You're gettin' gray, Eleanor. Pity you haven't children. He doesn't look very contented!—but men are men," said Mrs. Newbolt.
"He ought to be contented," Eleanor said, passionately; "I adore him!"
"You've got to interest him," her aunt said; "that's more important than adorin' him! A man can buy a certain kind of adoration, but he can't purchase interest."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Eleanor said, trembling.