“So I intend,” said Mrs. Rowland, with a laughing bow to him, as of a queen to a king. “We shall have a great deal to settle when we get home, and I hope that everybody will be pleased with my despotism.”
“Oh, as for that,” said Marion, taking upon herself again the role of expositor, “I’ve always read that a lady should be the mistress in her own side; the gentleman, outside; and she’s not to meddle with him; but the lady——”
“I assure you I shall meddle with him, Marion. The flower garden, for instance, I shall take entirely into my hands. In short, I don’t know the thing in which I shall not meddle.”
“The lady,” said Marion, raising her voice a little, “should have all the house to manage, and the children, and all within her own sphere. The books all say that woman’s sphere is Home.”
“With a great many capital letters.”
“You may be meaning some joke with your capital letters, but I’m saying just what I’ve read. It’s nothing about politics nor business—not that kind of thing; but to sit at the fireside and give her orders, and everybody to be at her beck and call.”
“Excellent, Marion; you have said your lesson very well, and I hope you mean to be at this lady’s beck and call.”
“I don’t know,” said Marion, “that it means the grown-up children: for when you get to be eighteen or so, you are supposed to be able to judge for yourself. But it was no lesson. It was just what I’ve read in books. I have always been very fond of reading books.”
“You could not do better, my dear; and we must read some books together,” said Evelyn. Then she thought there had been enough of Marion for the moment. “The woods are beautiful,” she said, “and I see, James, the mountains you told me of. Is that Ben Ros—that great shoulder rising over the loch, or the peak in the distance that is so blue and misty? You must tell me when we have time, every name. I think I should prefer to stop the carriage and walk the rest of the way.”
“That is just what I would like you to do,” said her husband, “for every step’s enchanted ground.”