“Then why don't you marry him, Martha?” I said, with innocent impertinence.
“Marry him! I wouldn't marry him for ten thousand pounds, child!”
“Why not, if you love him so much? I'm sure he wouldn't mind!”
“Marry him!” repeated Miss Martha, and stood looking at me as if here at last was a creature she could _not_ understand; “marry the poor dear man, and make him miserable! I could love any man better than that! Just you open your eyes, my dear, and see what goes on about you. Do you see so many men made happy by their wives? I don't say it's all the wives' fault, poor things! But the fact's the same: there's the poor husbands all the time trying hard to bear it! What with the babies, and the headaches, and the rest of it, that's what it comes to--the husbands are not happy! No, no! A woman can do better for a man than marry him!”
“But mayn't it be the husband's fault--sometimes, Martha?”
“It may; but what better is it for that? What better is the wife for knowing it, or how much happier the husband for not knowing it? As soon as you come to weighing who's in fault, and counting how much, it's all up with the marriage. There's no more comfort in life for either of them! Women are sent into the world to make men happy. I was sent to your uncle, and I'm trying to do my duty. It's nothing to me what other women think; I'm here to serve your uncle. What comes of me, I don't care, so long as I do my work, and don't keep him waiting that made me for it. You may think it a small thing to make a man happy! I don't. God thought him worth making, and he wouldn't be if he was miserable. I've seen one woman make ten men unhappy! I know my calling, Orbie. Nothing would make me marry one of them, poor things!”
“But if they all said as you do, Martha?”
“No doubt the world would come to an end, but it would go out singing, not crying. I don't see that would matter. There would be enough to make each other happy in heaven, and the Lord could make more as they were wanted.”
“Uncle says it takes God a long time to make a man!” I ventured to remark.
Miss Martha was silent for a moment. She did not see how my remark bore on the matter in hand, but she had such respect for anything my uncle said, that when she did not grasp it she held her peace.