"You make George out to be extremely selfish, which I am sure he is not."
"No, not more so than we all are."
"Why, mother, I am sure you are not selfish. You are always ready to sacrifice your own enjoyment for the sake of promoting that of others."
"I have been subjected to a longer course of discipline, than either you or George. I have lived long enough to know, that the true secret of making ourselves happy is to endeavour to make others so. This is, at least, the case with all those whose finer sensibilities have not been blunted, or, more properly speaking, have been rightly cultivated. But it will do no good to enter into a metaphysical discussion of the subject. The course proper to be pursued by a woman, whose husband's income is rather limited, appears to me perfectly plain."
"The course proper for me to pursue, is that which will best please
George."
"Certainly, and that is precisely what I would advise you to do; but I don't think that literally acting upon this suggestion of his, respecting domestic duties, will please him for any great length of time."
Emily made no reply to this. She had decided in her own mind to obey the wishes of George, more especially as they exactly accorded with her own.
A few weeks from the time of the foregoing conversation, George and Emily Brenton commenced housekeeping. Their house was neatly and handsomely furnished, and through the influence of Emily's mother, Experience Breck, a girl thirty-five years old, who well understood domestic, labour, undertook to perform the duties of chambermaid, laundress, and cook, for what all concerned considered a reasonable compensation.
Their home, to make use of George's words, the first time he saw Emily's parents after everything was satisfactorily arranged, "was a little paradise." Pedy (the diminutive for Experience) was the best of cooks and clear-starchers, and never had he tasted such savory soups, and meat roasted so exactly to a turn, or such puddings and such pastry; and never had it been his fortune to wear shirt-bosoms and collars, which so completely emulated the drifted snow.
"And Emily too—she was the dearest and most cheerful of wives, and so bright an atmosphere always surrounded her, that one might almost imagine that she was a bundle of animated sunbeams. She was always ready to sing and play to him, or to listen while he read to her from some favourite author."