should be too frightened to learn if he were my teacher."

"Then some one else must be thought of," Edward said, with a look of
amusement. "How would I answer?"

"You? Oh, splendidly!"

"You are not afraid of me?"

"No, indeed!" she cried, with a merry laugh and a saucy look up into his
face.

"And yet I'm the only person who has authority over you."

"Authority, indeed!" with a little contemptuous sniff.

"You promised to obey, you know."

"Did I? Well, maybe so, but that's just a form that doesn't really mean
anything. Most any married woman will tell you that."

"Do you consider the whole of your marriage vow an unmeaning form, Zoe?"
he asked, with sudden gravity and a look of doubt and pain in his eyes
that she could not bear to see.

"No, no! I was only in jest," she said, dropping her eyes and blushing
deeply. "But really, Edward, you don't think, do you, that wives are to
obey like children?"

"No, love, I don't; and I think in a true marriage the two are so entirely