dormant in Mrs. Seal’s breast. She was terribly afraid that one of these days Mary, the young woman who typified so many rather sentimental and enthusiastic ideas, who had some sort of visionary existence in white with a sheaf of lilies in her hand, would announce, in a jaunty way, that she was about to be married.
“You don’t mean that you’re going to leave us?” she said.
“I've not made up my mind about anything,” said Mary—a remark which could be taken as a generalization.
Mrs. Seal got the teacups out of the cupboard and set them on the table.
“You're not going to be married, are you?” she asked, pronouncing the words with nervous speed.
“Why are you asking such absurd questions this afternoon, Sally?’ Mary asked, not very steadily. “Must we all get married?”
Mrs. Seal emitted a most peculiar chuckle. She seemed for one moment to acknowledge the terrible side of life which is concerned with the emotions, the private lives, of the sexes, and then to sheer off from it with all possible speed into the shades of her own shivering virginity. She was made so uncomfortable by the turn the conversation had taken, that she plunged her head into the cupboard, and endeavoured to abstract some very obscure piece of china.
“We have our work,” she said, withdrawing her head, displaying cheeks more than usually crimson, and placing a jam-pot emphatically upon the table. But, for the moment, she was unable to launch herself upon one of those enthusiastic, but inconsequent, tirades upon liberty, democracy, the rights of the people, and the iniquities of the Government, in which she delighted. Some memory from her own past or from the past of her sex rose to her mind and kept her abashed. She glanced furtively at Mary, who still sat by the window with her
