th him into the holy estate of
matrimony some of the habits of his bachelor life.

As a bachelor, he had never willingly left his shop (situated in that
exclusively commercial region of London which is called "the City") from
one year's end to another. As a married man, he persisted in following
the same monotonous course; with this one difference, that he now had
a woman to follow it with him. "Travelling by railway," he explained to
his wife, "will make your head ache--it makes _my_ head ache. Travelling
by sea will make you sick--it makes _me_ sick. If you want change of
air, every sort of air is to be found in the City. If you admire the
beauties of Nature, there is Finsbury Square with the beauties of Nature
carefully selected and arranged. When we are in London, you (and I) are
all right; and when we are out of London, you (and I) are all wrong."
As surely as the autumn holiday season set in, so surely Old Ronald
resisted his wife's petition for a change of scene in that form of
words. A man habitually fortified behind his own inbred obstinacy and
selfishness is for the most part an irresistible power within the limits
of his domestic circle. As a rule, patient Mrs. Ronald yielded; and her
husband stood revealed to his neighbours in the glorious character of a
married man who had his own way.

But in the autumn of 1856, the retribution which sooner or later
descends on all despotisms, great and small, overtook the iron rule of
Old Ronald, and defeated the domestic tyrant on the battle-field of his
own fireside.

The children born of the marriage, two in number, were both daughters.
The elder had mortally offended her father by marrying imprudently--in
a pecuniary sense. He had declared that she should never enter his house
again; and he had mercilessly kept his word. The younger daughter
(now eighteen years of age) proved to be also a source of parental
inquietude, in another way. She was the passive cause of the revolt
which set her father's authority at defiance. For some little time past
she had been out of health. After many ineffectual trials of the mild
influence of persuasion, her mother's patience at last gave way. Mrs.
Ronald insisted--yes, actually insisted--on taking Miss Emma to the
seaside.

"What's the matter with you?" Old Ronald asked; detecting something that
perplexed him in his wife's look and manner, on the memorable occasion
when she asserted a will of her own for the first time in her lif