“You see your parents very naturally wished you to make a better worldly marriage. That difficulty was smoothed over, not by the merits of Henry, but the money of Sir Percival Tracey. Could you respect your husband if he were not secretly chafed at that thought? He desires to lift himself up to you even in your parents’ eyes, not by a miserable pecuniary settlement effected through a kinsman, but by his own deeds. Oppose that, and you humiliate him. Never humiliate a husband. Yield to it, and you win his heart and his gratitude for ever. Man must never be put into an inferior position to his helpmate. Is not that true? Thank you, my child—(come, the word is out)—for that pressure of my hand. You understand us men. Let Henry leave you, sure that his name will be mentioned with praise in his commanding officer’s report after some gallant action, looking forward to the day when, in command himself, Parliament shall vote him its thanks, and his sovereign award him her honours; and your Henry, as you cling in pride to his breast, shall whisper in words only heard by you—‘Wife mine, your parents are not ashamed of me now! All this is your work! all results from the yearning desire to show that the man whom you had singled out from the world was not unworthy of your love!’” “But Henry does not say those pretty things,” sighed Clara, half smiling, half weeping. “Say them? In words, of course not. What man, and especially what Englishman, does say pretty things? It is only authors, who are the interpreters of hearts, that say what lovers and heroes feel. But a look says to the beloved one more than authors can put into words. Henry’s look will tell you what you, his own, his wife, have been to him in the bivouac, in the battle; and you will love and reverence him the more because he does not say the pretty things into which I mince and sentimentalise the calm Englishman’s grand, silent, heartfelt combination of love with duty and with honour. My dear Clara, I speak to you as I would to my own daughter. Let your young soldier go. You and I indeed—the woman and the civilian—may talk as we will of distinctions between the defence of the island and the preservation of the empire. But a soldier is with his country’s flag wherever it is placed—whether in the wilds of Caffraria or on the cliffs of Dover. Clara, am I not right? Yes! you again press my hand. After all, there is not a noble beat in the heart of man which does not vibrate more nobly still in the heart of the wife who loves him!”