"My dear," she said slowly, "if they think so themselves, it's not my place to judge. It often puzzles one to understand why people choose one another, but I am a strong believer in nature! Nature is always working out her own great plan, and she dictates for the good of the race. You see it all around--the dark chooses the light, the tall chooses the short, the fat chooses the thin, the brilliant woman marries a sportsman, the man of letters a gentle house-frau. Nature has dictated in this case. Captain Peignton is not too strong, and his nerves have been taxed: Teresa doesn't know what nerves are. I never knew a more healthy, normal girl." "Mrs Evans, you have known her for ages. Do _you_ think she is interesting?" But Mrs Evans was not to be trapped into personal expressions of feeling. "It is quite immaterial what _I_ think. I have known Teresa Mallison all her life, but, my dear, I know nothing about the Teresa whom Captain Peignton sees. He in his turn knows very little about the Teresa who will be his wife at the end of the first two or three years of married life." Grizel's hazel eyes widened with a look of fear. "Does one inevitably change so much?" "One _grows_!" Mrs Evans said. "How could it be otherwise? Marriage for a girl means a shouldering of responsibility for the first time in her life, facing a money strain, a health strain, a curtailment of liberty. There is more joy one hopes, but there is certainly more discipline. Troubles must come--" Grizel threw out a protesting hand. Her thoughts had slipped instinctively from the newly engaged couple, to the more enthralling subject of Martin and herself, and the prophecy hurt. "Why must they, if they aren't needed? Suppose people can be disciplined by happiness, why need they have the trials? _I_ am disciplined by happiness. It suits me; it makes me good. It does _not_ make me selfish and unkind. And I _am_ grateful. I go about that little house, and there's something inside me singing `Thank you!' `Thank you!' all day long. I'm so brimming over with love and charity that it's all I can do not to kiss the cook on her cross old face, and press a diamond brooch into her hand. Anything to make her cheerful! It hurts to see anyone less happy than myself. Don't, please, say I must have trouble, Mrs Evans. Let me stay in the sun!" "Dear child!" said the Vicar's wife, and once again she felt the unwonted pricking sensation at the back of her eyes. She was used to sorrow, skilled in offering consolation and advice, but it was all too rare an experience to meet with joy. In the depths of her kind old heart she wondered if indeed Grizel were not right, but not for the world would she have allowed herself to express so unorthodox a feeling. She walked in silence for some yards, and then, with a sudden change of subject, asked shortly, "How's Katrine?"