"And I have said nothing that every one about Mr.Redmain does not know as well as I do." Hesper wished heartily she had never challenged Mary's judgment.
"But," she resumed, more quietly, "how could you, how could any one, how could God himself, hard as he is, ask me to fulfill the part of a loving wife to a man like Mr.Redmain ?--There is no use mincing matters with _you,_ Mary." "But you promised," persisted Mary.

"It belongs, besides, to the very idea of marriage." "There are a thousand promises made every day which nobody is expected to keep.

It is the custom, the way of the world! How many of the clergy, now, believe the things they put their names to ?" "They must answer for themselves.

We are not clergymen, but women, who ought never to say a thing except we mean it, and, when we have said it, to stick to it." "But just look around you, and see how many there are in precisely the same position! Will you dare to say they are all going to be lost because they do not behave like angels to their brutes of husbands ?" "I say, they have got to repent of behaving to their husbands as their husbands behave to them." "And what if they don't ?" Mary paused a little.
"Do you expect to go to heaven, ma'am ?" she asked "I hope so." "Do you think you will like it ?" "I must say, I think it will be rather dull." "Then, to use your own word, you must be very like lost anyway.

There does not seem to be a right place for you anywhere, and that is very like being lost--is it not ?" Hesper laughed.
"I am pretty comfortable where I am," she said.
"Husband and all!" thought Mary, but she did not say that.