What do birth and breeding
mean if not that one has the high courage to bear what is, after
all, the lot of most women, and the high intelligence to use one's
circumstances, whatever they may be, to accomplish one's
ambitions? A lady cannot afford to despise her husband. A lady is,
first of all, serene. You talk like a Craig rather than like a
Severance. If he can taint you this soon how long will it be
before you are at his level? How can you hope to bring him up to
yours?"
Margaret's head was hanging.
"Never again let me hear you speak disrespectfully of your
husband, my child," the old lady went on impressively. "And if you
are wise you will no more permit yourself to harbor a
disrespectful thought of him than you would permit yourself to
wear unclean underclothes."
Margaret dropped down at her grandmother's knee, buried her face
in her lap. "I don't believe I can ever love him," she murmured.
"So long as you believe that, you never can," said Madam Bowker;
"and your married life will be a failure--as great a failure as
mine was--as your mother's was. If I had only known what I know
now--what I am telling you--" Madam Bowker paused, and there was a
long silence in the room.
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