“Why,” says Phil, “beside her ladyship here, are they not a set of rustics?” With which he kissed her, and rose to go to his room.

“Merci, monsieur!” said Margaret, rising and dropping him a curtsey, with the prettiest of glances, as he left the parlour.

She hummed a little French air, and went and ran her fingers up and down the keys of the pianoforte, which great new instrument had supplanted the old harpsichord in the house.  Tom and I, standing at the fireplace, watched her face as the candle-light fell upon it.

“Well,” quoth Tom, “Phil is no prouder of his wife than I am of my sister.  Don’t you think she grows handsomer every day, Bert?”

“’Tis the effect of happiness,” said I, and then I looked into the fireplace rather than at her.  For I was then, and had been for long months, engaged in the struggle of detaching my thoughts from her charms, or, better, of accustoming myself to look upon them with composure; and I had made such good success that I wished not to set myself back in it.  Eventually my success was complete, and I came to feel toward her no more than the friendship of a lifelong comrade.  If a man be honest, and put forth his will, he can quench his love for the woman that is lost to him, unless there have existed long the closest, tenderest, purest ties between them; and even then, except that ’twill revive again sometimes at the touch of an old memory.

“You dear boys!” says Margaret, coming over to us, to reward Tom with a kiss on the cheek, and me with a smile.  “What a vain thing you will make me of my looks!”

“Nay,” says candid Tom, “that work was done before ever we had the chance of a hand in it.”

“Well,” retorted Margaret, with good-humoured pertness, “there’ll never be reason for me to make my brother vain of his wit.”

“Nor for my sister to be vain of hers,” said Tom, not in nettled retaliation, but merely as uttering a truth.

“You compliment me there,” says Margaret, lightly.  “Did you ever hear of a witty woman that was charming?”

“That is true,” I put in, remembering some talk of Phil’s, based upon reading as well as upon observation, “for usually a woman must be ugly, before she will take the trouble to cultivate wit.  The possession of wit in a woman seems to imply a lack of other reliances.  And if a woman be pretty and witty both, her arrogance is like to be such as drives every man away.  And men resent wit in a woman as if ’twere an invasion of their own province.”

“Sure your explanation must be true, Mr. Philosopher,” said Margaret, “’tis so profound.  As for me, I seek no reasons; ’tis enough to know that most witty women are frights; and I don’t blame the men for refusing to be charmed by ’em.”

“Well, sis,” said Tom, “I’m sure even the cultivation of wit wouldn’t make you a fright.  So you might amuse yourself by trying it, ma’am.  As for charming the men, you married ladies have no more to do with that.”