Why should Ethel's refusal of Lord Farintosh
have so much elated my wife?
"Ah!" cries Mrs. Pendennis, "she has a generous nature, and the world has
not had time to spoil it. Do you know there are many points that she
never has thought of--I would say problems that she has to work out for
herself, only you, Pen, do not like us poor ignorant women to use such a
learned word as problems? Life and experience force things upon her mind
which others learn from their parents or those who educate them, but, for
which she has never had any teachers. Nobody has ever told her, Arthur,
that it was wrong to marry without love, or pronounce lightly those awful
vows which we utter before God at the altar. I believe, if she knew that
her life was futile, it is but of late she has thought it could be
otherwise, and that she might mend it. I have read (besides that poem of
Goethe of which you are so fond) in books of Indian travels of Bayaderes,
dancing-girls brought up by troops round about the temples, whose calling
is to dance, and wear jewels, and look beautiful; I believe they are
quite respected in--in Pagoda-land.
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