Nobody laughed, and nobody made any
response, and after dinner Ernest took me aside, and said, kindly
enough, but still said it,
"My little wife must be careful how she runs on in my father's
presence. He has a great deal of every thing that might be thought
levity."
Then all the vials of my wrath exploded and went off.
"Yes, I see how it is," I cried, passionately. "You and your father
and your sister have got a box about a foot square that you want to
squeeze me into. I have seen it ever since they came. And I can tell
you it will take more than three of you to do it. There was no harm
in what I said-none, whatever. If you only married me for the sake of
screwing me down and freezing me up, why didn't you tell me so before
it was too late?"
Ernest stood looking at me like one staring at a problem he had got
to solve, and didn't know where to begin.
"I am very sorry," he said. "I thought you would be glad to have me
give you this little hint. Of course I want you to appear your very
best before my father and sister."
"My very best is my real self," I cried. "To talk like a woman of
forty is unnatural to a girl of my age. If your father doesn't like
me I wish he would go away, and not come here putting notions into
your head, and making you as cold and hard as a stone. Mother liked
to have me 'run on,' as you call it, and I wish I had stayed with her
all my life.
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