“Oh, no,” she continued, eagerly clutching at Flora’s last words, “you are too selfishly engrossed with your own happiness to have the least sympathy for the sorrows of a friend. Ah, well!—It’s early days with you yet! Let a few short years of domestic care pass over your head, and all this honey will be changed to gall. Matrimony is matrimony, and husbands are husbands, and wives will strive to have their own way—ay, and will fight to get it too. You will then find, Mrs. Lyndsay, that very little of the sugar of love, and all such romantic stuff, remains to sweeten your cup; and in the bitterness of your soul, you will think of me.”
“If this is true,” said Flora, “who would marry?”
“It is true in my case.”
“But fortunately there are exceptions to every rule.”
“Humph!—This is another compliment, Mrs. Lyndsay, at my expense.”
“Mrs. Ready, I do not wish to quarrel with you; but you seem determined to take all my words amiss.”
A long silence ensued,—Mrs. Ready smoothed down her ruffled plumes, and said, in a pitying, patronising tone, very common to her—
“You will be disgusted with Canada: we shall see you back in less than twelve months.”
“Not very likely, if I know anything of John and myself.”
“What will you do for society?”