"I wonder if you mean to conform to the rule?" her friend asked, with an impulse half of mockery, half of curiosity.
"I don't mean to conform to any rule," said Nora. "One has to wait, you know, when one is a girl, till somebody is kind enough to fall in love with one; and then you are allowed to say whether you will have him or no. Don't you remember what Beatrice says?—'It is my cousin's duty to make courtesy and say, "Father, as it please you,"' only with that little reservation, 'Let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another courtesy——'"
"It is worse than that," said Edith, very gravely. "You say some things are hard upon young men; but oh, how much, much harder upon girls! It is in town that one feels that. There was something, after all, to be said for Carry marrying in the country, without going through the inspection of all these men. If I speak to any one or dance with any one who would be a good match, they will say immediately that mamma has got her eye upon him—that she is trying to catch him for me—that she means to make up a marriage. My mother," cried Edith, with an inference in the very emphasis with which she uttered the word; "as if she were not more romantic than I am a hundred times, and more intolerant of scheming! The fatal thing is," added the girl, with her serious face, "that, if a crisis should come, mamma would give in. Against her conscience she will try to find reasons for doing what my father wishes, whether it is right or wrong."
"But isn't it a woman's duty to do what her husband wishes?" said Nora. "I have always heard that, too, at home."
These two young women belonged to their period. They considered the subject gravely, willing to be quite impartial; but neither she who suggested that conjugal obedience was a duty, nor she who objected to it in her mother's case, felt the question to be in the least beyond discussion.
"It is in the Bible," said Edith—"one cannot deny that; still there must be distinctions. A woman who is grown up, and a reasonable creature, cannot obey like a slave. It is still more distinct that a child should obey its parents; but at my age, it is not possible I could just do everything I am told, like a little girl. If papa were to order me to do as poor Carry did, I should not think twice; I should refuse, plainly. If it is wrong, I cannot help it; it could not be so wrong as to obey. I would not do it,—nothing in the world," cried the girl, in her ardour striking her hands together, "would make me do it; and with far more reason a mother should—judge for herself. You will never convince me otherwise," Edith said, holding her head high.
Nora pondered, but made no reply. She had never arrived at any great domestic question on which the rules of her life had been out of accord with her happiness. She had never thought of orders from one or the other of her parents, insisted upon against her will. They had never compelled her to do anything, so far as she could remember. And indeed, cruel parents are little known to the children of the present day. She would not have believed in them but for this great and evident instance of Carry Lindores. The Earl was no tyrant either. He had never been known in the character until that temptation came in his way. Had he forced his daughter to compliance? Nobody could say so. He had not locked her in her room, or kept her on bread and water, or dragged her to the altar, according to old formulas. He had insisted, and she had not been strong enough to stand out. Was it not her fault rather than his? Open as a nineteenth-century mind is bound to be to all sides of the question, Nora was not sure that there was not something to be said for the father too—which was a great instance of candour in a representative of youth.
"I do not understand being forced to do anything," she said, contemplatively. "How is it when you are forced? One might yield of one's own will. If I was asked to do anything—I think anything—for the sake of my father and mother, I should do it, whatever it was."
"Almost anything," Edith said, correcting her friend; "but not that, for instance—certainly not that."
"I don't know what you mean by that" said Nora, petulantly; though indeed this was not exactly true. Both speaker and listener knew that it was not exactly true, and no explanation followed. The girls had been wandering in the woods which covered the sloping bank on the summit of which the castle stood. Its turrets were visible far above them, among the green of the early foliage. The trees were still thinly but brightly clad, the leaves not wholly unclosed, the beeches just loosening their spring finery out of its brown sheath. The river was still some way below. They were seated full in the afternoon sunshine, which was not warm enough to incommode them, upon a knoll covered half with grass, half with moss, through which penetrated here and there the brownness of the twisted roots, and of bits of rock and boulder. All about in the hollows, under every projection, at the root of every tree, nestling in the crevices of the brown banks, and on the edges of the rocks, were clumps of primroses, like scatterings of palest gold. The river made a continuous murmur in the air; the birds were busy overhead in all their sweet afternoon chatter, flitting about from branch to branch, paying their visits, trying over their notes. It was only through a checkered screen of leaves that the sky was visible at all, save in this little opening, where all was light and brightness, the centre of the picture, with these two young figures lending it interest. They were not either of them beauties to make a sensation in a London season, but they were both fair enough to please any simple eye—two fair and perfect human creatures in their bloom, the very quintessence of the race, well-bred, well-mannered, well-educated, well-looking, knowing a little and thinking a little, and perhaps, according to the fashion of the time, believing that they knew less and thought more than was at all the case. Both Edith and Nora despised themselves somewhat for knowing no Latin, much less any Greek. They thought the little accomplishments they possessed entirely trivial, and believed that their education had been shamefully neglected—which was an unnecessary reproach to their parents, who had done the best they could for the girls, and had transmitted to them at least an open and bright intelligence, which is more pleasant than learning. On the other hand, these young things believed that they had inspirations unknown to their seniors, and had worked out unaided many problems unsolved by their fathers and mothers—which perhaps was also a mistaken view. They liked to raise little questions of delicate morality, and to feel that there were more things in heaven and earth than had been thought of in any previous philosophy. They were a little alike even in appearance; the one a little fairer than the other—not any piquant contrast of blue eyes with brown, after the usual fashion of artistic grouping. They might even have been mistaken for sisters, as they sometimes were—a mistake which pleased them in their enthusiasm for each other.