“And are you really happy?” she blurted out suddenly. Bertha smiled, and reddening, looked more charming than ever.
“Yes—I think I’m perfectly happy.”
“Aren’t you sure?” asked Miss Glover, who cultivated precision in every part of life and strongly disapproved of persons who did not know their own minds.
Bertha looked at her for a moment, as if considering the question.
“You know,” she answered, at last, “happiness is never quite what one expected it to be. I hardly hoped for so much; but I didn’t imagine it quite like it is.”
“Ah, well, I think it’s better not to go into these things,” replied Miss Glover, a little severely, thinking the suggestion of analysis scarcely suitable in a young married woman. “We ought to take things as they are, and be thankful.”
“Ought we?” said Bertha lightly, “I never do.... I’m never satisfied with what I have.”
They heard the opening of the front door and Bertha jumped up.
“There’s Edward! I must go and see him. You don’t mind, do you?”
She almost skipped out of the room; marriage, curiously enough, had dissipated the gravity of manner which had made people find so little girlishness about her. She seemed younger, lighter of heart.