Once, when praised for excellent housekeeping by a friend in her husband’s hearing, her native sincerity made her say:
“You are mistaken in supposing that the drudgery connected with home-making is easy or pleasant to me. If I did not feel it my duty to go into the kitchen sometimes, and to arrange rooms, I doubt if I should ever do either. Nor am I fond of sewing.”
“Yet your needle-work is exquisitely neat,” said the surprised visitor.
“Because I hold myself to the necessity of doing well what I undertake. It is all business, not delight.”
After the visitor had gone, Barton gave a gentle and needful caution.
“Don’t talk in that way to acquaintances, dear,” he said. “I don’t want people to report that your tastes are unfeminine.”
“Surely there are other feminine tastes besides love for needle, broom, and egg-beater?” Agnes protested, no less gently. “Why should every woman be proficient in baking, when every man is not compelled to learn book-keeping? I am faithful in the discharge of domestic duties because I love you and consider your happiness rather than selfish ease. I love my home, and to enjoy the effect of clean, orderly rooms and well-served meals, I am willing to perform tasks for which I have no real liking. The game is well worth the candle—a good many waxlights, in fact—but I question if you, for example, really like to draw up conveyances and make searches.”
“Illustration is not argument,” said Barton dryly. “You are undeniably a clever woman, my love, but your reasoning would hardly convince a jury. Women’s efforts in that direction are what we style ‘special pleading.’”
This talk was held two months ago. Agnes knew better, by now, than to attempt argument with him, and his love grew apace because of the forbearance he mistook for conviction of his ability to direct thought with action. She was the dearer for being dutiful. The docility with which she listened to his dicta, never betraying a suspicion that they were dogmas, won him to forgetfulness of the circumstance that she was his senior by six years and a blue-stocking.
She was in the front hall when he got home to-night, receiving the adieu of a spectacled personage whom she introduced as “Mr. Rowland of Boston.”