who was always
courteous and complimentary in his speech, whose domestic tastes were
obvious, who thought it no trouble to supervise the smallest details of
the household, who could order a dinner, lay out a garden, stock a
conservatory, or amend the sanitary arrangements of a stable with equal
cleverness; who never neglected a duty towards wife or society?

Mrs. Winstanley could see no flaw in the perfection of her husband's
character; but it began about this time slowly to dawn upon her languid
soul that, as Captain Winstanley's wife, she was not so happy as she
had been as Squire Tempest's widow.

Her independence was gone utterly. She awoke slowly to the
comprehension of that fact. Her individuality was blotted out, or
absorbed into her husband's being. She had no more power or influence
in her own house, than the lowest scullion in her kitchen. She had
given up her banking account, and the receipt of her rents, which in
the days of her widowhood had been remitted to her half-yearly by the
solicitor who collected them. Captain Winstanley had taken upon himself
the stewardship of his wife's income. She had been inclined to cling to
her cheque-book and her banking account at Southampton; but the Captain
had persuaded her of the folly of such an arrangement.

"Why two balances and two accounts, when one will do?" he argued. "You
have only to ask me for a cheque when you want it, or to give me your
bills."

Whereupon the bride of six weeks had yielded graciously, and the
balance had been transferred from the Southampton bank to Captain
Winstanley's account at the Union.

But now, with Theodore's unsettled account of four years' standing
hanging over her head by the single hair of the penny post, and likely
to descend upon her any morning, Mrs. Winstanley regretted her
surrendered banking account, with its balance of eleven hundred pounds
or so. The Captain had managed everything with wondrous wisdom, no
doubt. He had done away with all long credits. He paid all his bills on
the first Saturday in the month, save such as could be paid weekly. He
had reduced the price of almost everything supplied to the Abbey House,
from the stable provender to the wax candles that lighted the faded
sea-green draperies and white panelling of the drawing-room. The only
expenditure over which he had no control was his wife's private
disbursement; but he had a habit of looking surprised when she asked
him for a cheque, and a business-