“Oh no,” said the amiable little bride, “my husband might fill all the dishes with smoke if he liked, and I would turn out the rooms myself if only he would stay at home; but it is so dull being alone.”
“Well, my dear,” said Polly, “if there were a way to preserve your present superfluous loneliness in water-glass or screw-topped bottles, I’d buy it off you with pleasure, or, better still, make you keep it to use later. You’ll want it.”
“We are dining out to-night for the first time,” said the bride, cheering up at the prospect; “and then, perhaps, I shall get to know a few people.” We felt that it would be only right to take the top off this dream as well, and to show her the realities which lay beneath. “Oh, I expect you’ll have plenty of callers by and by,” said Mrs. Beehive. (“The better to see you, my dear,” I added in my mind, remembering Red Riding Hood.)
“Don’t pour out all your soul on the carpet after dinner, there’s a dear,” said kindly Polly.
“What do you mean?” the victim asked, beginning to get frightened.
“Well,” I suggested, “if anyone asks you whether you have early tea in the morning, and whether your husband finds that he can manage with four clean shirts a week, put them off with some excuse——”
Polly broke in earnestly, “And don’t let out any little theories you may have formed about living or anything, and don’t answer when they ask if this was your first offer of marriage, and——”
“And,” I interrupted across her, “don’t say if you like games, or you will be placarded as a champion hockey-player. Don’t admit that you can read, write, cipher, walk, ride, drive, see, hear, taste, smell, get in a temper, or play on any instrument, or that you ever wash, eat, sleep, cry, laugh, or thread a needle. Admit nothing, deny nothing, express no hopes or fears, acknowledge no creed. There is only one subject on God’s earth which you can broach without danger to your reputation, and that is the weather. If you find yourself being led into an expression of opinion about anything, throw the evil thing from you and take up the weather where you left it—and may heaven defend you.”
“One more thing,” said Polly; “and mind what I say, or you’ll regret it. If anyone offers you a footstool or a cushion behind your back, kick it away and sit up, whatever you feel like.”
“But I do very often feel tired,” said the bride.