I looked round me. All the flowers were cool and still; the calla breathless and quiet; the pond-lily shut; the roses full of dew and perfume; the clematis languid and luxuriant.
"Delia," said I, "what do you think about matrimony?"
Mrs. Reading stared at me with her honest green eyes. I laughed.
"Well," said she, "marriage is a lottery, Miss Clara. Reading was a pretty good feller; but seein' things was as they was, if I'd had means and knowed what I know now, I shouldn't never have married him."
"May-be you'd have married somebody else, though," suggested I.
"Like enough, Miss Clara; girls are unaccountable perverse when they get in love. But do get up and go to bed. A'n't you goin' to the Lake to-morrow?"
That put my speculation to flight. Up I rose and meekly followed Delia to my room; this time she staid to see me fairly disrobed. But I had had sleep enough. I was also quiet; I could think. The future lay at my feet, to be planned and patterned at my will; or so I thought. I had not permitted myself to think much about Harry Tempest, from an instinctive feeling of danger; I did not know then that
"En songeant qu'il faut oublier
On s'en souvient!"
I was young, rich, beautiful, independent; I came and went as I would, without question, and did my own pleasure. If I married, all this power must be given up; possibly I and my husband would tire of each other,—and then what remained but fixed and incurable disgust and pain? I thought over my strange dream. Cleopatra, the enchantress, and the scorn of men: that was not love, it was simple passion of the lowest grade. Lady Jane Grey: she was only proper. Marguerite de Valois: profligate. Elizabeth: a shrewish, selfish old politician. Who of all these had loved? Arria: and Paetus dying, she could not love. Lady Russell: she lived and mourned. I looked but at one side of the argument, and drew my inferences from that, but they satisfied me. Soon I saw the dawn stretch its opal tints over the distant hills, and tinge the tree-tops with bloom. I heard the half-articulate music of birds, stirring in their nests; but before the sounds of higher life began to stir I had gone to sleep, firmly resolved to ride to the Lake, and to give Harry Tempest no opportunity to speak to me alone. But I slept too long; it was noon before I woke, and I had sent no message about my preference of the pony, as I promised, to Mr. Tempest. I had only time to breakfast and dress. At three o'clock he came,—with his carriage, of course. So I rode to the Lake!
It's all very well to make up one's mind to say a certain thing; it is better if you say it; but, somehow or other,—I really was ashamed afterward,—I forgot all my good reasons. I found I had taken a great deal of pains to no purpose. In short, after due time, I married Harry Tempest; and though it is some time since that happened, I am still much of Eve's opinion,—