She never derogated from her husband's honour by the fictitious
liveliness of gossip, or allowed any one to forget the peeress in the
woman. Lord Dumbello soon found that his reputation for discretion
was quite safe in her hands, and that there were no lessons as to
conduct in which it was necessary that he should give instruction.
Before the winter was over she had equally won the hearts of all
the circle at Hartletop Priory. The duke was there and declared to
the marchioness that Dumbello could not possibly have done better.
"Indeed, I do not think he could," said the happy mother. "She sees
all that she ought to see, and nothing that she ought not."
And then, in London, when the season came, all men sang all manner
of praises in her favour, and Lord Dumbello was made aware that he
was reckoned among the wisest of his age. He had married a wife who
managed everything for him, who never troubled him, whom no woman
disliked, and whom every man admired. As for feast of reason and
for flow of soul, is it not a question whether any such flows and
feasts are necessary between a man and his wife? How many men can
truly assert that they ever enjoy connubial flows of soul; or that
connubial feasts of reason are in their nature enjoyable? But a
handsome woman at the head of your table, who knows how to dress, and
how to sit, and how to get in and out of her carriage--who will not
disgrace her lord by her ignorance, or fret him by her coquetry, or
disparage him by her talent--how beautiful a thing it is! For my own
part I think that Griselda Grantly was born to be the wife of a great
English peer.
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