They're going to be much better people than we were. Surely everything
goes to prove that. All round me I see women, young women, women with
household cares of every sort, going out and doing things that we should
not have thought it possible to do."
Mr. Pepper thought her sentimental and irrational like all old women,
but her manner of treating him as if he were a cross old baby baffled
him and charmed him, and he could only reply to her with a curious
grimace which was more a smile than a frown.
"And they remain women," Mrs. Thornbury added. "They give a great deal
to their children."
As she said this she smiled slightly in the direction of Susan and
Rachel. They did not like to be included in the same lot, but they both
smiled a little self-consciously, and Arthur and Terence glanced at
each other too. She made them feel that they were all in the same boat
together, and they looked at the women they were going to marry and
compared them. It was inexplicable how any one could wish to marry
Rachel, incredible that any one should be ready to spend his life with
Susan; but singular though the other's taste must be, they bore each
other no ill-will on account of it; indeed, they liked each other rather
the better for the eccentricity of their choice.
"I really must congratulate you," Susan remarked, as she leant across
the table for the jam.
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