es passed between him and his
yoke-fellow, who always came off victorious from the dispute; insomuch,
that his countenance gradually fell: he began to suppress, and at length
entirely devoured, his chagrin; the terrors of superior authority were
plainly perceivable in his features; and in less than three months
he became a thorough-paced husband. Not that his obstinacy was
extinguished, though overcome. In some things he was as inflexible and
mulish as ever; but then he durst not kick so openly, and was reduced
to the necessity of being passive in his resentments. Mrs. Trunnion, for
example, proposed that a coach and six should be purchased, as she could
not ride on horseback, and the chaise was a scandalous carriage for a
person of her condition. The commodore, conscious of his own inferior
capacity in point of reasoning, did not think proper to dispute the
proposal but lent a deaf ear to her repeated remonstrances, though
they were enforced with every argument which she thought could soothe,
terrify, shame or decoy him into compliance. In vain did she urge
the excess of affection she had for him as meriting some return of
tenderness and condescension: he was even proof against certain menacing
hints she gave touching the resentment of a slighted woman; and he stood
out against all the considerations of dignity or disgrace like a bulwark
of brass. Neither was he moved to any indecent or unkind expressions of
contradiction, even when she upbraided him with his sordid disposition,
and put him in mind of the fortune and honour he had acquired by his
marriage, but seemed to retire within himself, like a tortoise when
attacked, that shrinks within its shell, and silently endured the
scourge of her reproaches, without seeming sensible of the smart.

This, however, was the only point in which she had been baffled since
her nuptials; and as she could by no means digest the miscarriage, she
tortured her invention for some new plan by which she might augment
her influence and authority. What her genius refused was supplied by
accident; for she had not lived four months in the garrison, when
she was seized with frequent qualms and retchings; in a word, she
congratulated herself on the symptoms of her own fertility; and the
commodore was transported with joy at the prospect of an heir of his own
begetting.

She knew this was the proper season for vindicating her own sovereignty,
and accordingly employed the means which nature had