Inviting Friends For Sister Marriage Quotes

his…demands?” And then she had held her breath as if seriously expecting Isabel to answer. And last night as Isabel passed a half-open bedroom door, she had overheard a fellow guest speaking to her maid. “I do so admire Lady Isabel for not feeling the need to bow to the demands of fashion,” the woman had said. “She dresses instead in what is comfortable even if it is not in the first stare. Though I find it no wonder her husband has strayed.” Isabel had gritted her teeth and gone on down to dinner, where she smiled and flirted and silently dared anyone to comment to her face that her dress was at least two years old. If only her early departure wouldn’t cause so much comment, she would call for her carriage and go home right now. But that was impossible. For one thing, she didn’t have a carriage, for she had come up from London with a fellow guest. Too short of funds to afford a post-chaise, she was equally dependent on her friend for transport back to the city when the hunting party broke up. And secondly, of course, there were only two places she could go—Maxton Abbey, or the London house—and her husband might be at either one. Unless, with her safely stashed at the Beckhams’, he had accepted yet another of the many invitations he received. But she couldn’t take the chance. After little more than a year of marriage, the pattern was ingrained—wherever one of the Maxwells went, the other took pains not to go. She could not burst in on her husband; what if he were entertaining his mistress? Better not to know. She might go to the village of Barton Bristow, descending on her sister. But Emily’s tiny cottage was scarcely large enough for her and her companion, with no room for a guest—and Mrs. Dalrymple’s constant chatter and menial deference was enough to set Isabel’s teeth on edge. In fact, the only nice thing Isabel could say about being married was that at least she wasn’t required to drag a spinster companion around the countryside with her to preserve her reputation, as Emily had to do. Isabel turned her borrowed mount over to the stable boys and strode across to the house, where the butler intercepted her in the front hall. “A letter has just been delivered for you, Lady Isabel, by a special messenger. He said a post-chaise will call for you tomorrow.” She took the folded sheet with trepidation. Who could be summoning her? Not her husband, that was certain. Her father, possibly, for yet another lecture on the duties of a young wife? She broke the seal and unfolded the page. My dearest Isabel, You will remember from happier days that I will soon celebrate my seventieth birthday… Uncle Josiah. But her moment of relief soon

Gridley, however, would demand discipline of his new protégé. Pursue the law and not the gain of it, he admonished. Don’t socialize, and don’t marry too early. “An early marriage will obstruct your improvement…and twill involve you in expense.” He then sent John off to read Coke’s Institutes of the Laws of England. John bound himself to this agreement, but reluctantly because he was twenty-three years old. The pledge to avoid social life entirely, and particularly female companionship, pained him. He was far too extroverted to isolate himself entirely with the law books that Mr. Gridley gave him. Still, he mastered his assigned readings so successfully that Gridley invited him to participate in an elite club of lawyers that met to discuss legal theory. But the command to avoid socializing proved too hard. He managed to fulfill his commitment to Gridley while also keeping company with friends. In fact, John was under the spell of a different romance when he and Abigail met for the first time in the summer of 1759. His visit to the Weymouth parsonage occurred because he accompanied his good friend Richard Cranch, who was courting Abigail’s older sister, Mary. “Polly and Nabby are Wits,” he noted dismissively, using the Smith sisters’ nicknames. John meant that Abigail and Mary were smart and clever, that they sparkled in conversation. Perhaps he was even intimidated by the young women’s erudition. They certainly were interesting and lively. John, however, was currently enamored of Hannah Quincy, a cousin of Abigail’s, whom he had met the previous winter. During that winter, while he was still bound to read law with Jeremiah