"In that case," said Letty, "I ought to have married a milkman, for a dairy is the only thing I understand. I can't help Tom ever so little!--But I suppose it wouldn't be possible for two to write poetry together, even if they were husband and wife, and both of them clever!" "Something like it has been tried, I believe," answered Mary, "but not with much success. I suppose, when a man sets himself to make anything, he must have it all his own way, or he can't do it." "I suppose that's it. I know Tom is very angry with the editor when he wants to alter anything he has written. I'm sure Tom's right, too. You can't think how much better Tom's way always is!--He makes that quite clear, even to poor, stupid me. But then, you know, Tom's a genius; that's one thing there's _no_ doubt of!--But you haven't told me yet where you are." "You remember Miss Mortimer, of Durnmelling?" "Quite well, of course." "She is Mrs. Redmain now: I am with her." "You don't mean it! Why, Tom knows her very well! He has been several times to parties at her house." "And not you, too?" asked Mary. "Oh, dear, no!" answered Letty, laughing, superior at Mary's ignorance. "It's not the fashion in London, at least for distinguished persons like my Tom, to take their wives to parties." "Are there no ladies at those parties, then?" "Oh, yes!" replied Letty, smiling again at Mary's ignorance of the world, "the grandest of ladies--duchesses and all. You don't know what a favorite Tom is in the highest circles!" Now Mary could believe almost anything bearing on Tom's being a favorite, for she herself liked him a great deal more than she approved of him; but she could not see the sense of his going to parties without his wife, neither could she see that the _height_ of the circle in which he was a favorite made any difference. She had old-fashioned notions of a man and his wife being one flesh, and felt a breach of the law where they were separated, whatever the custom--reason there could be none. But Letty seemed much too satisfied to give her any light on the matter. Did it seem to her so natural that she could not understand Mary's difficulty? She could not help suspecting, however, that there might be something in this recurrence of a separation absolute as death--for was it not a passing of one into a region where the other could not follow?--to account for the change in her.--The same moment, as if Letty divined what was passing in Mary's thought, and were not altogether content with the thing herself, but would gladly justify what she could not explain, she added, in the tone of an unanswerable argument: "Besides, Mary, how could I get a dress fit to wear at such parties? You wouldn't have me go and look like a beggar! That would be to disgrace Tom. Everybody in London judges everybody by the clothes she wears. You should hear Tom's descriptions of the ladies' dresses when he comes home!"