“I have thought of that,” answered Miss Vane. “I don't see why it shouldn't last. I have tried to believe that I did a foolish thing in coming to your rescue, but I can't see that I did. I don't see why it shouldn't last as long as Lemuel chooses. And he seems perfectly contented with his lot. He doesn't seem to regard it as domestic service, but as domestication, and he patronises our inefficiency while he spares it. His common-sense is extraordinary—it's exemplary; it almost makes one wish to have common-sense one's-self.” They had now got pretty far from the original proposition, and Sewell returned to it with the question, “Well, and how does he supplement you singularly?”
“Oh! oh, yes!” said Miss Vane. “I could hardly tell you without going into too deep a study of character.”
“I'm rather fond of that,” suggested the minister.
“Yes, and I've no doubt we should all work very nicely into a sermon as illustrations; but I can't more than indicate the different cases. In the first place, Jane's forgetfulness seems to be growing upon her, and since Lemuel came she's abandoned herself to ecstasies of oblivion.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. She's quite given over remembering anything, because she knows that he will remember everything.”
“I see. And you?”
“Well, you have sometimes thought I was a little rash.”
“A little? Did I think it was a little?”
“Well, a good deal. But it was all nothing to what I've been since Lemuel came. I used to keep some slight check upon myself for Sibyl's sake; but I don't now. I know that Lemuel is there to temper, to delay, to modify the effect of every impulse, and so I am all impulse now. And I've quite ceased to rule my temper. I know that Lemuel has self-control enough for all the tempers in the house, and so I feel perfectly calm in my wildest transports of fury.”