The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Iron Rule, by T. S. Arthur

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Title: The Iron Rule
or, Tyranny in the Household

Author: T. S. Arthur

Posting Date: August 18, 2009 [EBook #4628]
Release Date: November, 2003
First Posted: February 20, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IRON RULE ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

THE IRON RULE;

OR, TYRANNY IN THE HOUSEHOLD.

BY

T. S. ARTHUR,

AUTHOR OF "LOVE IN HIGH LIFE," "LOVE IN A COTTAGE," "MARY MORETON; OR,
THE BROKEN PROMISE," "AGNES; OR, THE POSSESSED," "INSUBORDINATION,"
"LUCY SANDFORD," "THE ORPHAN CHILDREN," "THE DEBTOR'S DAUGHTER," "THE
DIVORCED WIFE," "PRIDE AND PRUDENCE," "THE TWO MERCHANTS," "CECILIA
HOWARD," "THE BANKER'S WIFE," ETC. COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

Philadelphia:

1853

JTABLE 7 14 1

THE IRON RULE;

OR, TYRANNY IN THE HOUSEHOLD.

CHAPTER I.

ANDREW HOWLAND belonged to that class of rigid moralists who can
tolerate in others no wanderings from the right way. His children
were forced into the straight jacket of external consistency from
their earliest infancy; and if they deviated from the right line in
which they were required to walk, punishment was sure to follow.

A child loves his parent naturally. The latter may be harsh, and
unreasonable; still the child will look up to him in weak
dependence, while love mingles, like golden threads in a dark
fabric, amid the fear and respect with which he regards him. Thus it
was with the children of Andrew Howland. Their mother was a gentle,
retiring woman, with a heart full of the best affections. When the
sunshine fell upon her golden locks in the early days of innocence,
it was in a home where the ringing laugh, the merry shout, and the
wild exuberance of feeling ever bursting from the heart of childhood
were rarely checked; or, if repressed, with a hand that wounded not
in its firm contraction. She had grown up to womanhood amid all that
was gentle, kind and loving. Transplanted, then, like a tender
flower from a sunny border, to the cold and formal home of her
husband, she drooped in th