Was it the quick-sightedness of jealousy, I wonder, or was it that women read women better than men do, where their love or their vanity is concerned, which made me suspect that she had been not only a _femme_ de _talens_, but a _femme_ à _talens_, and that Lord Martindale had married a woman who had been in public life? However, what did that matter to me? Whatever she was, she possessed fascinations which I had not; she had a power of amusing and interesting which I had never possessed; and I feared that to him who could admire her I must soon cease to be an object of love, though I might continue to be one of esteem. But did I wish to please as she had been pleasing? Did I wish to be able to exhibit my person in attitudes so alluring? Would it have been consistent with the modest dignity of an English gentlewoman? Nay, would my husband have liked to see me so exhibit in company? Notwithstanding, to charm, amuse and fix his roving eye, and enliven our domestic scenes, I could not help wishing that I could do all she did. But I could not do it, and I feared her. We were asked to stay dinner, but we refused: however, another day was fixed for our waiting on them, so the evil was only delayed. And what were we doing? and wherefore? We were entering into dinner visits, and with a reduced income, with persons who lived in all the luxuries of life, and of whom we knew nothing but that ten years before they had been forced to run away from their creditors, and that the chances were they would be forced to do so again. The wherefore was still less satisfactory to me. We did it that my husband might amuse away his hours; and, as I had reason to fear, forget in this stimulating sort of company and diversions the anxieties and the unhappy feelings which were in future likely to cling to him at home. For I was sure he was involved in debts which he could not pay, and those who are so involved are always forced to substitute constant amusement for happiness. If they do not, they fly to intoxication; but agreeable company and gay pursuits are the better intoxication, I own, of the two.