The small drawing-room that adjoined my mother's dressing-room was the only exception to this almost prison discipline; and there she now sat with Polly, MacNaghten, Rutledge, and one or two more, the privileged visitors of that favored spot,--my mother at her embroidery-frame, that pleasant, mock occupation which serves so admirably as an aid to talking or to listening, which every Frenchwoman knows so well how to employ as a conversational fly-wheel. They assuredly gave no evidence in their tone of that depression which the gloomy weather had thrown over the other guests. Laughter and merriment abounded; and a group more amusing and amused it would have been difficult to imagine. Rutledge, perhaps, turned his eyes towards the door occasionally, with the air of one in expectation of something or somebody; but none noticed this anxiety, nor, indeed, was he one to permit his thoughts to sway his outward actions. “The poor Duke,” cried MacNaghten, “he can bear it no longer. See, there he goes, in defiance of rain and wind, to take his walk in the shrubbery!” “And mon pauvre mari--go with him,” said my mother, in a tone of lamentation that made all the hearers burst out a-laughing. “Ah, I know why you Irish are all so domestic,” added she,--“c'est le climat!” “Will you allow us nothing to the credit of our fidelity,--to our attachments, madame?” said Rutledge, who, while he continued to talk, never took his eyes off the two figures, who now walked side by side in the shrubbery. “It is a capricious kind of thing, after all, is your Irish fidelity,” said Polly. “Your love is generally but another form of self-esteem; you marry a woman because you can be proud of her beauty, her wit, her manners, and her accomplishments, and you are faithful because you never get tired in the indulgence of your own vanity.” “How kind of you is it, then, to let us never want for the occasion of indulging it,” said Rutledge, half slyly. “I don't quite agree with you, Miss Polly,” said Mac-Naghten, after a pause, in which he seemed to be reflecting over her words; “I think most men--Irishmen, I mean--marry to please themselves. They may make mistakes, of course,--I don't pretend to say that they always choose well; but it is right to bear in mind that they are not free agents, and cannot have whom they please to wife.” “It is better with us,” broke in my mother. “You marry one you have never seen before; you have nothing of how you call 'exultation,' point des idées romantiques; you are delighted with all the little 'soins' and attentions of your husband, who has, at least, one inestimable merit,--he is never familiar.” “How charming!” said Rutledge, with mock seriousness. “Is it not?” continued she, not detecting the covert irony of his tone; “it is your intimité,--how you call it?” “Intimacy.” “Oui,” said she, smiling, but not trusting herself to repeat the word. “C'est cela,--that destroys your happiness.”