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an independent little person; she had far more brains than her Howard.
I think it must have been his moustaches that frightened her, and caused
in her this humility.

Selfish husbands have this advantage in maintaining with easy-minded
wives a rigid and inflexible behaviour, viz. that if they DO by any
chance grant a little favour, the ladies receive it with such transports
of gratitude as they would never think of showing to a lord and master
who was accustomed to give them everything they asked for; and hence,
when Captain Walker signified his assent to his wife's prayer that she
should take a singing-master, she thought his generosity almost divine,
and fell upon her mamma's neck, when that lady came the next day, and
said what a dear adorable angel her Howard was, and what ought she not
to do for a man who had taken her from her humble situation, and raised
her to be what she was! What she was, poor soul! She was the wife of a
swindling parvenu gentleman. She received visits from six ladies of her
husband's acquaintances--two attorneys' ladies, his bill-broker's lady,
and one or two more, of whose characters we had best, if you please,
say nothing; and she thought it an honour to be so distinguished: as
if Walker had been a Lord Exeter to marry a humble maiden, or a noble
prince to fall in love with a humble Cinderella, or a majestic Jove
to come down from heaven and woo a Semele. Look through the world,
respectable reader, and among your honourable acquaintances, and say if
this sort of faith in women is not very frequent? They WILL believe in
their husbands, whatever the latter do. Let John be dull, ugly, vulgar,
and a humbug, his Mary Ann never finds it out; let him tell his stories
ever so many times, there is she always ready with her kind smile; let
him be stingy, she says he is prudent; let him quarrel with his best
friend, she says he is always in the right; let him be prodigal, she
says he is generous, and that his health requires enjoyment; let him
be idle, he must have relaxation; and she will pinch herself and
her household that he may have a guinea for his club. Yes; and every
morning, as she wakes and looks at the face, snoring on the pillow by
her side--every morning, I say, she blesses that dull ugly countenance,
and the dull ugly soul reposing there, and thinks both are something
divine. I want to know how it is that women do not find out their
husbands to be humbugs? Nature has so provided it, an