Americans let their women say and do anything, and were capable
of fetching and carrying for them. He had seen a man run upstairs for
his wife's wrap, cheerfully, without the least apparent sense that
the service was the part of a footman if there was one in the house, a
parlour maid if there was not. Sir Nigel had been brought up in the good
Early Victorian days when "a nice little woman to fetch your slippers
for you" figured in certain circles as domestic bliss. Girls were
educated to fetch slippers as retrievers were trained to go into the
water after sticks, and terriers to bring back balls thrown for them.
The new Lady Anstruthers had, it supervened, several opportunities to
obtain a new view of her bridegroom's character before their voyage
across the Atlantic was over. At this period of the slower and more
cumbrous weaving of the Shuttle, the world had not yet awakened even to
the possibilities of the ocean greyhound. An Atlantic voyage at times
was capable of offering to a bride and bridegroom days enough to begin
to glance into their future with a premonition of the waning of the
honeymoon, at least, and especially if they were not sea-proof, to wish
wearily that the first half of it were over.
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