"Yes, it tortures through time," agreed Caroline, "except when it is mutual love."
"Mutual love! My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I hope?"
"Sometimes—whenever I can get them, indeed; but romance-writers might know nothing of love, judging by the way in which they treat of it."
"Nothing whatever, my dear!" assented Mrs. Pryor, eagerly; "nor of marriage; and the false pictures they give of those subjects cannot be too strongly condemned. They are not like reality: they show you only the green tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or truthful hint of the slough underneath."
"But it is not always slough," objected Caroline: "there are happy marriages. Where affection is reciprocal and sincere, and minds are harmonious, marriages must be happy."
"It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally be as one: there is, perhaps, a possibility of content under peculiar circumstances, such as are seldom combined; but it is as well not to run the risk: you may make fatal mistakes. Be satisfied, my dear: let all the single be satisfied with their freedom."
"You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay: "you speak like Mrs. Yorke, in her most gloomy moments:—like Miss
