“But to go and settle among--his own people! perhaps they are not all as good as ever lived. They must be a little different to what you have been used to. Don’t you think you should stipulate for a little freedom? Frank’s people are as good as ever lived, and they are all of course, so to speak, in our own set. But if I were condemned to live with them all the year round, I should die. Evelyn! it is, I assure you, a very serious matter. One should begin with one’s husband seriously, you know. Very good women who always pretend to like everything they are wanted to do, and smother their own inclinations, are a mistake, my dear. They always turn out a mistake. In the first place they are not true any more than you thought me to be the other day. They are cheating, even if it is with the best of motives. And in the end they are always found out. And to pretend to like things you hate is just being as great a humbug as any make-believe in society. Besides, your husband would like it far better if you provided him with a little amusement, and kept his own people off him for part of the year.” “I don’t think Society would amuse him at all,” said Evelyn, with a laugh. “And besides, he has no people that I know of--so that you need not be frightened for me--except his own children,” she added, with involuntary gravity. Lady Leighton gave vent to an “O!” which was rounder than the O of Giotto. Horror, amazement, compassion were in it. “He has children!” she said faintly. “Two--and they, of course, will be my first duty.” “Girls?” “A girl and a boy.” “Oh, you poor thing!” said Lady Leighton, giving her friend an embrace full of sympathy. “I am so sorry for you! I hope they are little things.” Evelyn felt a little restored to herself when she was encountered with such solemnity. “You have turned all at once into a Tragic Muse,” she said; “you need not be so sorry for me. I am not--sorry for myself.” “Oh, don’t be a humbug,” said Lady Leighton severely; “of all humbugs a virtuous humbug is the worst. You hate it! I can see it in your eyes.” “My eyes must be very false if they express any such feeling. To tell the truth,” she added smiling, “I am a little frightened--one can scarcely help being that. I don’t know how they may look upon me. I shouldn’t care to be considered like the stepmother of the fairy tales.” “Poor Evelyn!” said Lady Leighton. She was so much impressed as to lose that pliant readiness of speech which was one of her great qualities. Madeline’s resources were generally supposed by her friends to be unlimited: she had a suggestion for everything. But in this case she was silenced--for at least a whole minute. Then she resumed, as if throwing off a load.