All the same, upon my word of honour, you, dear innocent soul, are the
only person to whom I have made any direct communication on the subject.
It is at once your great virtue and defect that you find everything that
everybody does quite right and reasonable--you, the wife eternally in
love with her husband; eternally watching over your children like a
brood-hen.
You are really virtuous, Lillie. But I may add that you have no reason
for being anything else. For you, life is like a long and pleasant day
spent in a hammock under a shady tree--your husband at the head and your
children at the foot of your couch.
You ought to have been a mother stork, dwelling in an old cart-wheel on
the roof of some peasant's cottage.
For you, life is fair and sweet, and all humanity angelic. Your
relations with the outer world are calm and equable, without temptation
to any passions but such as are perfectly legal. At eighty you will
still be the virtuous mate of your husband.
Don't you see that I envy you? Not on account of your husband--you may
keep him and welcome! Not on account of your lanky maypoles of
daughters--for I have not the least wish to be five times running a
mother-in-law, a fate which will probably overtake you.
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