“To be sure he is, and he would not be half so fond of me, if others did not flutter around me, as you call it. Nothing keeps a man up to the mark so well, as seeing that his wife is valued by others. Do you not invariably see dawdling devoted wives, with careless indifferent husbands?” “Indeed I am not sure that devotion is the way to fix one’s husband,” rejoined Lucy, in a desponding tone. “It only spoils the men, Lucy. Husbands are things that ought to be kept in hot water, if one wishes to preserve one’s influence over them, which every woman of sense must perceive is one of her first duties. And I own I should not like to be considered as a domestic drudge, who have fulfilled the end of my existence when I have provided heirs to the estate, can keep my husband’s shirts mended, and know precisely when the kettle boils. Women have souls, and they have hearts” (so they have! thought Lucy), “and understandings—sometimes the best of the two; and it always makes my blood boil to see them treated as beings of an inferior order! People do not judge for themselves. If you are overlooked by others, your husband thinks nothing of you; if others admire and seek your society, he is proud that so _recherchée_ a person is his wife. Of course I would not have any woman commit herself by word or deed. As you know, I would not walk across the room for any man that breathes: no one ever saw me do any one thing derogatory to the dignity of our sex; but there is no reason why one should not dress well, and make one’s-self agreeable. _On vaut ce qu’on veut valoir_, especially in one’s husband’s eyes.” Lucy began to think it was as much the bounden duty of every married woman to flirt, as to love, honour, and obey. “I think,” added Lucy, “very submissive wives often have faithless husbands.” “It stands to reason they should. Men have had flirtations, and liaisons, and love affairs of all kinds, up to the time they marry. They have been accustomed to excitement, and they can never sit down contented with a humdrum wife, always hemming and stitching quietly at home. Unless a woman has something in her, the husband will seek for amusement abroad.” “This is rather hard upon some women though, who have never had all these flirtations, and who do not want to flirt, but would fain give their whole hearts to their husbands; at best they can only hope to be last of many loves.” “Why you could never have expected to be your husband’s first love, my dear! Really! Lucy, you are the oddest mixture of romance and worldly wisdom, that ever I met with. One would think you had married all for love, or the world well lost. Yours is the most sentimental mode of making a good _parti_ I ever knew.” “I was not alluding to myself,” Lucy hastily interrupted; for she dreaded to have her secret annoyances laid bare to the eyes of any one, especially to those of Sophy.