best of motives.
But tell me, should you wish your sons to be like Mr. Huntingdon--or even
like yourself?'

'Hang it! no.'

'Should you wish your daughter to despise you--or, at least, to feel no
vestige of respect for you, and no affection but what is mingled with the
bitterest regret?'

'Oh, no! I couldn't stand that.'

'And, finally, should you wish your wife to be ready to sink into the
earth when she hears you mentioned; and to loathe the very sound of your
voice, and shudder at your approach?'

'She never will; she likes me all the same, whatever I do.'

'Impossible, Mr. Hattersley! you mistake her quiet submission for
affection.'

'Fire and fury--'

'Now don't burst into a tempest at that. I don't mean to say she does
not love you--she does, I know, a great deal better than you deserve; but
I am quite sure, that if you behave better, she will love you more, and
if you behave worse, she will love you less and less, till all is lost in
fear, aversion, and bitterness of soul, if not in secret hatred and
contempt. But, dropping the subject of affection, should you wish to be
the tyrant of her life--to take away all the sunshine from her existence,
and make her thoroughly miserable?'

'Of course not; and I don't, and I'm not going to.'

'You have done more towards it than you suppose.'

'Pooh, pooh! she's not the susceptible, anxious, worriting creature you
imagine: she's a little meek, peaceable, affectionate body; apt to be
rather sulky at times, but quiet and cool in the main, and ready to take
things as they come.'

'Think of what she was five years ago, when you married her, and what she
is now.'

'I know she was a little plump lassie then, with a pretty pink and white
face: now she's a poor little bit of a creature, fading and melting away
like a snow-wreath. But hang it!--that's not my fault.'

'What is the cause of it then? Not years, for she's only
five-and-twenty.'

'It's her own delicate health, and confound it, madam! what would you
make of me?--and the children, to be sure, that worry her to death
between them.'

'No, Mr. Hattersley, the children give her more pleasure than pain: they
are fine, well-dispositioned children--'

'I know they are--bless them!'

'Then why lay the blame on them?--I'll tell you what it is: it's silent
fretting and constant anxiety on your account, mingled, I suspect, with
something of bodily fear on her own. When you behave well, she can only
rej