."

"Dont begin to talk like that," said Marian, crossly. "People _do_ fall
in love, fortunately for them. It may be injudicious; and it may turn
out badly; but it fills up life in a way that all the barren philosophy
and cynicism on earth cannot. Do you think I would not rather have to
regret a lost love than to repine because I had been too cautious to
love at all? The disappointments of love warm the heart more than the
triumphs of insensibility."

"Thats rather a good sentence," said Elinor. "Your talk is more
classical than my writing. But what would the departed Marian Lind have
said?"

"The departed Marian Lind was so desperately wise that she neglected
that excellent precept, 'Be not righteous over much, neither make
thyself over wise; why shouldest thou destroy thyself?' I took up the
Bible last night for the first time since my marriage; and I thought
what fools we two used to be when we made up our minds to avoid all the
mistakes and follies and feelings of other people, and to be quite
superior and rational. 'He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he
that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.' It is all so true, in spite
of what Ned says. We were very clever at observing the wind and
regarding the clouds; and what are we the better for it? How much
irreparable mischief, I wonder, did we do ourselves by letting our
little wisdoms stifle all our big instincts! Look at those very other
people whom we despised; how happy they are, in spite of their having
always done exactly what their hearts told them!"

"I think we are pretty well off as people go. I know I am. Certainly it
was part of our wisdom that marriage was a bad thing; and I grant that
though you married in obedience to your instincts you are as well off as
I. But I dont see that we are the worse for having thought a little."

"I did _not_ marry in obedience to my instincts, Nelly; and you know it.
I made a disinterested marriage with a man whom I felt I could respect
as my superior. I was convinced then that a grand passion was a folly."

"And what do you think now?"

"I think that I did not know what I was talking about."

"I believe you were in love with Ned when you married him, and long
enough before that, too."

"Of course I loved him. I love him still."

"Do you, really? To hear you, one would think that you only respected
him as a superior."

"You have no right to say that. You dont understand."

"Perhaps not. Would you min