Madge often said laughingly that she lived in a world of her own. "But I have very good society," she would add; "the best and wisest of all ages give me their company. This morning I was listening to Plato's Dialogues, and this afternoon Sir Edwin Arnold was entertaining me at the Maple Club in Tokio. This evening—well, please do not think me frivolous, but affairs at Rome and a certain Prince Saracinesca claim my attention.
"A good novel puts me in a better humour and disposes me to sleep, you know," she would finish, brightly, "that I always read aloud to Fergus in the evening; we were going through a course of Thackeray—we were in the middle of 'Philip on his way through the world' when the accident happened. After that he could only bear a few verses or a psalm."
CHAPTER III.
AUNT MADGE.
"It is more delightful and more honourable to give than receive."—Epicurus.
Most people thought it a strange thing that Mrs. Broderick spoke so constantly of her husband. Mrs. Tolman, the Vicar's wife, who was a frequent visitor, had been scandalised more than once, and had expressed herself rather strongly on the subject to her husband.
"I know you think very highly of poor Mrs. Broderick, Stephen, and so do I," she remarked one day. "Very few women would bear things in that quiet, uncomplaining way, and the amount of work she gets through is astonishing; but that perpetual dragging in of her husband's name seems to me such bad taste."
"Upon my word, Isabella, I cannot say that I agree with you." And the Vicar straightened himself on the rug in his favourite attitude. He was a heavy, ponderous man, with an expression of shrewd good sense on his face that won people's confidence. "I wish other women were as faithful to their husband's memory, that flighty little Mrs. Martin, for example."
"My dear Stephen, what an absurd idea! Fancy talking of Lydia Martin, every one knows she is making a dead set at Mr. Germaine, although poor Jack Martin has hardly been dead a year. She is Mrs. Broderick's exact opposite. Please do not misunderstand me in this tiresome way," and here Mrs. Tolman frowned slightly. "It is the manner in which Mrs. Broderick speaks of her husband that offends my tastes. In my opinion"—compressing her lips as she spoke—"our departed dear ones are sacred, and should not be mentioned in a secular manner."