“That is so in all classes,” said Lady Jane; “but still that cannot be everything. Some must be bent upon doing their best in their new life. Those, for instance, who have not much money.” “I am afraid I cannot tell you,” said Susan, “for I never was in that predicament. My people, you know, were vulgar, and it was a great rise in the world for me, of course, to marry Hungerford.” “I do not think you have ever thought it that,” said Lady Jane. “Haven’t I? I ought to have, then. It _was_ a great rise; but my people were never poor. A good girl who is going to marry a clerk, or that sort of thing, buys a cookery-book, I believe, and has her husband’s slippers warmed for him when he comes home. She finds out all the cheap shops, and puts down her expenses every day in a book. That is all I know.” “I was not thinking of a clerk’s wife. I was thinking rather of a gentleman--in the country, for instance--not great people, but perfectly _nice_, and as--as good as ourselves, you know. If a girl wanted very much to do her duty, I wonder what she would do?” “It would depend very much upon her husband’s requirements, I should say. If he was a fox-hunter, she would probably ride a great deal, and find out all about horses and dogs; if he was studious, she would pay a little attention to books. All that wears off after a little time,” said Lady Hungerford. “But at the beginning, when a girl is not used to it, and is making experiments, she takes up all her husband’s fads, and attempts to humour him. By-and-by, of course, everything finds its level, and she lets him alone and follows her own way.” “You think, then, that it does not make much difference what one does,” said Lady Jane. “What one does! You do not mean yourself, I suppose? Crown princesses are above all that sort of thing; they are too magnificent for human nature’s daily food. You will be married by proxy, no doubt, when the time comes, in Westminster Abbey.” “Which means I shall never be married at all,” said Lady Jane, with subdued pleasure and a delightful sense of her own superior knowledge. She smiled with such a tender softness that her lively sister-in-law, who, if not formed in a very delicate mould, was yet capable of kind impulse, and clever enough to understand the superiority of the spotless creature beside her, had a moment of shame and self-reproach.