"I know it, Lyra--I know it. But you have no right to keep him from taking
a fancy to some young girl--and marrying her; to keep him to yourself; to
make people talk."
"There's something in that," Lyra assented, with impartiality. "But I don't
think it would be well for Jack to marry yet; and if I see him taking a
fancy to any real nice girl, I sha'n't interfere with him. But I shall be
very _particular_, Annie."
She looked at Annie with such a droll mock earnest, and shook her head with
such a burlesque of grandmotherly solicitude, that Annie laughed in spite
of herself. "Oh, Lyra, Lyra!"
"And as for me," Lyra went on, "I assure you I don't care for the little
bit of harm it does me."
"But you ought--you ought!" cried Annie. "You ought to respect yourself
enough to care. You ought to respect other women enough."
"Oh, I guess I'd let the balance of the sex slide, Annie," said Lyra.
"No, you mustn't; you can't. We are all bound together; we owe everything
to each other."
"Isn't that rather Peckish?" Lyra suggested.
"I don't know. But it's true, Lyra. And I shouldn't be ashamed of getting
it from Mr. Peck."
"Oh, I didn't say you would be."
"And I hope you won't be hurt with me. I know that it's a most
unwarrantable thing to speak to you about such a matter; but you know why
I do it."
"Yes, I suppose it's because you like me; and I appreciate that, I assure
you, Annie."
Lyra was soberer than she had yet been, and Annie felt that she was really
gaining ground. "And your husband; you ought to respect _him_--"
Lyra laughed out with great relish. "Oh, now, Annie, you _are_ joking!
Why in the _world_ should I respect Mr. Wilmington? An old man like
him marrying a young girl like me!" She jumped up and laughed at the look
in Annie's face. "Will you go round with me to the Putneys? thought Ellen
might like to see us."
"No, no. I can't go," said Annie, finding it impossible to recover at once
from the quite unanswerable blow her sense of decorum--she thought it her
moral sense--had received.
"Well, you'll be glad to have _me_ go, anyway," said Lyra. She saw
Annie shrinking from her, and she took hold of her, and pulled her up and
kissed her. "You dear old thing! I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the
world. And whichever it is, Annie, the parson or the doctor, I wish him
joy."