“Yes, yes, I dare say,” answered Mrs. Gilbert; “but, as I said before, I hope for both your sakes that you and Mr. Easton will have a good stupid wooing—at least a year of it—when he gets well.”
“I shall not object to that, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Farrell, demurely.
“No, I should hope you were too much of a woman. That’s a woman’s reign, the time of courtship. Her lover is never truly subject to her again. Make it as long as you can—long enough to get the romance out of your heads. And I wish you a sound quarrel or two.”
“Oh! Now you are joking.”
“Yes, I am. I hope you may never say an unkind word to each other. Have you a temper?”
“Not much, I believe.”
“Has he?”
“I’ve been a little afraid of him once or twice.”
“Already? Well, I think it’s a pity you haven’t a temper, too. Don’t be one of the coldly self-possessed kind when he is angry; it’s far better to be frightened.”
“I will try always to be frightened. But I’m not sure that it was any violence of his that scared me, so much as his—”