"Sweetest lips that ever were kissed, Brightest eyes that ever have shone, May sigh and whisper, and _he_ not list, Or look away, and never be missed Long or ever a month be gone."
It was a very curious _ménage_ that of the Forresters'. They were wonderfully happy, yet you could not call theirs _domestic_ felicity. They went out perpetually every where, and were scarcely ever alone together at home. Tho cold-water cure of matrimony had not been able to cool either down into the dignity and steadiness befitting that honorable state. As far as I could see, Charley flirted as much as ever; the only difference was, that he stole upon his victims now with a sort of protecting and paternal air, merging gradually, as the interest deepened, into the old confidential style. The whole effect was, if any thing, more seductive than before.
The fair Venetians admired him intensely. His bright, clear complexion and rich chestnut hair had the charm of novelty for them. Though without the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. _Mallem mehercule cum Platone errare_. When he said "_Si, Siora_," it seemed as if he were calling the lady by a pet name.
Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her unassuming way, but I think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots.
The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the latitude to which they carried it.
We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz. Fancy mounting guard in Eaton Square at 4 P.M., shrouded in a yellow fog, on the chance of surprising a forbidden morning visitor!
Supposing that we could adopt either of those methods, why should they prove more efficacious than they are said to be on their native soil? If the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom--nothing for the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his peace--why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most cases, his substantial interest would be little endangered.