“Charles! yes, he is a good sort of person,” said Victoria, smiling; “lets me have quite my own way here; has given me carte-blanche to do as I please; a liberty I can not always expect, so I mean to make the most of it while it lasts.”
“I dare say it will last,” observed Hilary.
“Oh, I don’t know; you English wives are so very domesticated and subdued; you seem to me to give up all will and way of your own; one’s own identity is lost in the unity of the marriage state; one is merged into another’s being; and so becomes nobody, in fact as well as deed.”
“Perhaps it may be better where such is the case,” said Hilary, “but it is not invariable.”
“Well, I like to do things well,” said Victoria; “and when I am an English wife I mean to behave as is expected of women of fortune and family. Upon the whole, I do not think it will be bad.”
“You are going to marry, then?” said Hilary, a little hesitatingly, yet anxious for the answer.
“I am to be married in the autumn,” replied Victoria; “meantime I intend to enjoy myself, and Charles lets me reign here en princesse. He certainly is good-nature itself with regard to me.”
“He told me at first how anxious he was to make England pleasant to you,” observed Hilary, recollecting the wonder she had felt when he had mentioned it to her.
“Now, I want to consult you,” continued Victoria, “about some of my plans.—Ha! well bowled, Mr. Duncan; do you see, your brother plays well; I think we will weave a crown for the victor, shall we, or at least give him a sprig of myrtle to stick in his coat as a trophy? Charles, you will be beat entirely. I wonder you do not exert yourself more for the sake of your partner.”
“I suspect Miss Gwyneth rejoices more in her brother’s prowess than she would in mine,” replied Charles, pausing before he sent off his bowl, which had been driven by Maurice’s last stroke close to the edge where the ladies were standing. “My defeat excites no sympathy, and my victory would raise no exultation, so long as one of the family lost by what I gained.”