Pages would not satisfactorily explain how this sequence of events came about, because pages would not suffice to get at the bottom of the amazing, unnatural ignorance of first principles which enables a nice girl to marry a man towards whom she entertains a rudimentary affection, and afterwards, with the same contented calm, to acquiesce in the disconcerting realities of life. Belle was not the first girl who chose a husband as she would have chosen a dress; that is to say, in the belief that it will prove becoming, and the hope that it will fit. Nor was she (and this is the oddest or the most tragic part in the business) the first or the last girl who, after solemnly perjuring herself before God and man to perform duties of which she knows nothing, and to have feelings of which she has not even dreamed, is on the whole perfectly content with herself and her world. In fact Belle, as she looked affectionately at her lounging spouse, felt no shadow of doubt as to the wisdom of her choice; so little has the mind or heart to do with the crude facts of marriage, so absolutely distinct are the latter from the spiritual or sentimental love with which ethical culture has overlaid the simplicity of nature to the general confusion of all concerned. "Upon my life, Paul de Kock is infinitely amusing!" remarked John Raby, throwing the book aside and turning lazily to his young wife. "Worth twice all your Zolas and Ohnets, who _will_ be serious over frivolity. Our friend here has an inexhaustible laugh." "I'm sure I thought him dreadfully stupid," replied Belle simply. "I tried to read some last night." "I wouldn't struggle to acquire the art of reading Paul de Kock, my dear," said John Raby with a queer smile. "It's not an accomplishment necessary to female salvation. The most iniquitous proverb in the language is that one about sauce for the goose and the gander. Say what you will, men and women are as different in their fixings as chalk from cheese. Now I,--though I am domestic enough in all conscience--would never be contented knitting socks as you are. By the way, those will be too big for me." "Who said they were meant for you?" retorted Belle gaily. "Not I!" "Perhaps not with your lips; but a good wife invariably knits socks for her husband, and you, my dear Belle, were foreordained from the beginning of time to be a good wife,--the very best of little wives a man ever had." "I hope so," she replied after a pause. "John, it is all very well here in holiday time to be lazy as I am, but by and by I should like to be a little more useful; to help you in your work, if I could; at any rate to understand it, to know what the people we govern think, and say, and do."