Pendarves came home that evening in great spirits. Every thing was arranged for the theatricals, and the play fixed upon. It was to be the Belle's Stratagem, and he was to play Doricourt, a part he had often played before. The part of Letitia Hardy, was given to a young lady who was an actress on private theatres; and every part was filled but that of Lady Frances Touchwood. "Oh, Helen!" cried he, "how happy should I be if you would give over all your dismals, lay aside your scruples, and make me your slave for life, by undertaking this mild and modest part!" "You bribe high," I replied (turning pale at the apprehension of any thing so contrary to my habits and my sense of right): "but you know my aversion to things of the sort." "I do: but I also know your high sense of a wife's duty; and that you cannot but own a wife ought to obey her husband's will, when not contrary to the will of God." "You seem to have high though just ideas of a wife's duty," said I, smiling; "now, perhaps, you will favour me with your opinion of a husband's duty." "Willingly. It is to wean a beloved wife, if possible, from gloomy thoughts; to keep amusing company himself, and to make her join it: in short, when he has engaged in private theatricals, it is his _duty_ to get his wife to engage in them also: and if you think such things dangerous to good morals, you are the more bound to engage in them, in order to watch over _mine_." I suspected he was right, and that the general duty should, in this instance, give way to the particular one; but I shrunk with aversion from the long and intimate association with these disagreeable if not disreputable people, to which it would oblige me; and after expressing this dislike I begged time to consider of his request. The next day I went to consult my mother, who at first would not hear the plan named, and declared that her child should not so far degrade herself as to allow her person to be profaned by such familiarities as acting must induce and she must suffer. But when I told her Mr. Oswald was to act Sir George Touchwood, a quiet, elderly married man, she was more reconciled to it on that score, but she disliked it as much as I did on other grounds. However, having convinced myself, I at length convinced her, that it was my duty to make myself as dear and as agreeable to my husband as I could, and not leave him thus exposed to the every day increasing fascinations of another woman. "But can you, my dear child," said she, "have fortitude enough to bear for days together the sight of his attentions to your rival? Will it not make you pettish, grave, and unamiable, and cloud your eyes in tears, which will incense and not affect, because they will seem a reproach?" "It will be a difficult task, and a severe trial, I own; but I humbly hope to be supported under it: and though the risk is great, the ultimate success is worth the venture."