Lady Juliana's anger at the discovery of her daughter's refusal it is needless to describe—it may easily be imagined; and poor Mary was almost heartbroken by the violence and duration of it. Sometimes she wavered in her ideas as to whether she was doing right in thus resisting her mother's wishes; and in the utmost distress she mentioned her scruples to Lady Emily.
"As to Lady Juliana's wishes," said her cousin, "they are mere soap-bubbles; but as to your own views—why, really you are somewhat of a riddle to me. I rather think, were I such a quiet, civil, well-disposed person as you, I could have married Lord Glenallan well enough. He is handsome, good-natured, and rich; and though 'he is but a Lord, and nothing but a Lord,' still there is a dash and bustle in twenty thousand a year that takes off from the ennui of a dull companion. With five hundred a year, I grant you, he would be execrable."
"Then I shall never marry a man with twenty thousand a year whom I would not have with five hundred."
"In short, you are to marry for love—that's the old story, which, with all your wisdom, you wise, well-educated girls always end in. Where shall I find a hero upon five hundred a year for you? Of course he must be virtuous, noble, dignified, handsome, brave, witty. What would you think of Charles Lennox?"
Mary coloured. "After what passed, I would not marry Colonel Lennox; no"—affecting to smile—"not if he were to ask me, which is certainly the most unlikely of all things."
"Ah! true, I had forgot that scrape. No, that won't do; it certainly would be most pitiful in you, after what passed. Well, I don't know what's to be done with you. There's nothing for it but that you should take Lord Glenallan, with all his imperfections on his head; and, after all, I really see nothing that he wants but a little more brain, and as you'll have the managing of him you can easily supply that deficiency."
"Indeed," answered Mary, "I find I have quite little enough for myself, and I have no genius whatever for managing. I shall therefore never marry, unless I marry a man on whose judgment I could rely for advice and assistance, and for whom I could feel a certain deference that I consider due from a wife to her husband."
"I see what you would be at," said Lady Emily; "you mean to model yourself upon the behaviour of Mrs. Tooley, who has such a deference for the judgment of her better half, that she consults him even about the tying of her shoes, and would not presume to give her child a few grains of magnesia without this full and unqualified approbation. Now I flatter myself my husband and I shall have a more equitable division; for, though man is a reasonable being, he shall know and own that woman is so too—sometimes. All things that men ought to know better I shall yield; whatever may belong to either sex, I either seize upon as my prerogative, or scrupulously divide; for which reason I should like the profession of my husband to be something in which I could not possibly interfere. How difficult must it be for a woman in the lower ranks of life to avoid teaching her husband how to sew, if he is a tailor; or how to bake, if he is a baker, etc.
"Nature seems to have provided for this tendency of both sexes, by making your sensible men—that is, men who think themselves sensible, and wish everybody else to think the same—incline to foolish women. I can detect one of these sensible husbands at a glance, by the pomp and formality visible in every word, look, or action—men, in short, whose 'visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond;' who are perfect Joves in their own houses—who speak their will by a nod, and lay down the law by the motion of their eyebrow—and who attach prodigious ideas of dignity to frightening their children, and being worshipped by their wives, till you see one of these wiseacres looking as if he thought himself and his obsequious helpmate were exact personifications of Adam and Eve—' he for God only, she for God in him.' Now I am much afraid, Mary, with all your sanctity, you are in some danger of becoming one of these idolatresses."
"I hope not," replied Mary, laughing; "but if I should, that seems scarcely so bad as the sect of Independents in the marriage state; for example, there is Mrs. Boston, who by all strangers is taken for a widow, such emphasis does she lay upon the personal pronoun—with her, 'tis always, I do this, or I do that, without the slightest reference to her husband; and she talks of my house, my gardens, my carriage, my children, as if there were no copartnery in the case."