unless you
submit to your husband," said Katharine, framing her aunt's words into
a far more definite shape than they had really worn; and when she spoke
thus she did not appear at all old-fashioned. Lady Otway looked at her
and paused for a moment.

"Well, I really don't advise a woman who wants to have things her own
way to get married," she said, beginning a fresh row rather elaborately.

Mrs. Hilbery knew something of the circumstances which, as she thought,
had inspired this remark. In a moment her face was clouded with sympathy
which she did not quite know how to express.

"What a shame it was!" she exclaimed, forgetting that her train of
thought might not be obvious to her listeners. "But, Charlotte, it would
have been much worse if Frank had disgraced himself in any way. And it
isn't what our husbands GET, but what they ARE. I used to dream of white
horses and palanquins, too; but still, I like the ink-pots best. And who
knows?" she concluded, looking at Katharine, "your father may be made a
baronet to-morrow."

Lady Otway, who was Mr. Hilbery's sister, knew quite well that, in
private, the Hilberys called Sir Francis "that old Turk," and though
she did not follow the drift of Mrs. Hilbery's remarks, she knew what
prompted them.

"But if you can give way to your husband," she said, speaking to
Katharine, as if there were a separate understanding between them, "a
happy marriage is the happiest thing in the world."

"Yes," said Katharine, "but--" She did not mean to finish her sentence,
she merely wished to induce her mother and her aunt to go on talking
about marriage, for she was in the mood to feel that other people could
help her if they would. She went on knitting, but her fingers worked
with a decision that was oddly unlike the smooth and contemplative
sweep of Lady Otway's plump hand. Now and then she looked swiftly at her
mother, then at her aunt. Mrs. Hilbery held a book in her hand, and
was on her way, as Katharine guessed, to the library, where another
paragraph was to be added to that varied assortment of paragraphs, the
Life of Richard Alardyce. Normally, Katharine would have hurried her
mother downstairs, and seen that no excuse for distraction came her way.
Her attitude towards the poet's life, however, had changed with other
changes; and she was content to forget all about her scheme of hours.
Mrs. Hilbery was secretly delighted. Her relief at finding herself
excused manifested itself in a s