And he
enjoyed this free exercise of language out-of-doors, because inside his
threshold he was on his P's and Q's. To call him "ugly Carroway," as
coarse people did, because of a scar across his long bold nose, was
petty and unjust, and directly contradicted by his own and his wife's
opinion. For nobody could have brighter eyes, or a kindlier smile, and
more open aspect in the forepart of the week, while his Sunday shave
retained its influence, so far as its limited area went, for he kept a
long beard always. By Wednesday he certainly began to look grim, and on
Saturday ferocious, pending the advent of the Bridlington barber, who
shaved all the Quay every Sunday. But his mind was none the worse, and
his daughters liked him better when he rasped their young cheeks with
his beard, and paid a penny. For to his children he was a loving and
tender-hearted father, puzzled at their number, and sometimes perplexed
at having to feed and clothe them, yet happy to give them his last and
go without, and even ready to welcome more, if Heaven should be pleased
to send them.

But Mrs. Carroway, most fidgety of women, and born of a well-shorn
family, was unhappy from the middle to the end of the week that she
could not scrub her husband's beard off. The lady's sense of human
crime, and of everything hateful in creation, expressed itself mainly in
the word "dirt." Her rancor against that nobly tranquil and most natural
of elements inured itself into a downright passion. From babyhood she
had been notorious for kicking her little legs out at the least speck
of dust upon a tiny red shoe. Her father--a clergyman--heard so much of
this, and had so many children of a different stamp, that when he came
to christen her, at six months of age (which used to be considered quite
an early time of life), he put upon her the name of "Lauta," to which
she thoroughly acted up; but people having ignorance of foreign tongues
said that he always meant "Matilda."

Such was her nature, and it grew upon her; so that when a young and
gallant officer, tall and fresh, and as clean as a frigate, was captured
by her neat bright eyes, very clean run, and sharp cut-water, she began
to like to look at him. Before very long, his spruce trim ducks, careful
scrape of Brunswick-leather boots, clean pocket-handkerchiefs, and
fine specklessness, were making and keeping a well-swept path to the
thoroughly dusted store-room of her heart. How little she dreamed, in
those