“Why I suppose not; for if you had wished to be your husband’s first love, you would have chosen a youth certainly not past nineteen. But sometimes you have such a melancholy, sentimental expression in your face, I scarcely know what to make of you.” “You have such spirits, Sophy! I think you have ten times the spirits you had when you were a girl, which is so odd!” and she thought of the halcyon days of donkeys and puppy dogs. “Not at all odd! When one is a girl, one does not know what one’s fate is to be; and though one has some pleasant and agreeable hours, one has mortifications also; but when one’s fortune is made, when one has a husband who is proud of one, and (though it sounds vain to say so) when one feels that one is admired and courted by others, I do not see why one should not be in spirits.” Lady Selcourt had been gratified that morning by a noble dandy’s compliance with her request to prolong his stay at Ashdale Park, in order to join in some charades which were proposed for the evening’s amusement, when he had resisted the general solicitations of the rest of the party. If Lucy had seen her at Sir Charles’s seat in Oxfordshire, with her husband and her children around her, in the bosom of her family, she would not have thought her flow of spirits so enviable. Arguments, the unsoundness and sophistry of which would be apparent enough at other times, appear conclusive and convincing when they are in accordance with the feelings of the moment. Lucy was thoroughly discontented with her husband, and her own manner of life; her mind was unsettled—she was in a state of mortification, while at the same time she thought more highly of her own charms than she had ever done before. She saw Sophy with half her personal beauty, but with an adoring husband (for she had succeeded in making Sir Charles admire, as well as fear her; she had enthralled him, and he dared not even struggle in his shackles, but appeared to look on them as precious ornaments); and she also saw her receiving the incense of that conventional complimentary manner which all women can command, if they choose to require it. If she had been happy at home, she would have despised and condemned such unmeaning homage; but as it was, she did not like to be altogether eclipsed by Sophy, and her manner instinctively assumed a tone which encouraged men to talk to her. There was a characteristic simplicity in her view of subjects, and in her mode of expressing herself, which amused, as being peculiar to herself. She ventured to be droll. She was pleased at success, her spirits rose, and she began to think that, after all, one might make oneself very tolerably happy without the romantic affection which Milly’s story had taught her to sigh after.