n her some counsels in his light airy way,
which, however, had sunk deep into her mind and which she had
endeavoured to follow to the letter. He had said not a word to her as
to her conduct to other men. It would not be natural that a father
should do so. But he had told her how to behave to her husband. Men, he
had assured her, were to be won by such comforts as he described. A
wife should provide that a man's dinner was such as he liked to eat,
his bed such as he liked to lie on, his clothes arranged as he liked to
wear them, and the household hours fixed to suit his convenience. She
should learn and indulge his habits, should suit herself to him in
external things of life, and could thus win from him a liking and a
reverence which would wear better than the feeling generally called
love, and would at last give the woman her proper influence. The Dean
had meant to teach his child how she was to rule her husband, but of
course had been too wise to speak of dominion. Mary, declaring to
herself that the feeling generally called love should exist as well as
the liking and the reverence, had laboured hard to win it all from her
husband in accordance with her father's teaching; but it had seemed to
her that her labour was wasted. Lord George did not in the least care
what he ate. He evidently had no opinion at all about the bed; and as
to his clothes, seemed to receive no accession of comfort by having one
wife and her maid, instead of three sisters and their maid and old Mrs.
Toff to look after them. He had no habits which she could indulge. She
had looked about for the weak point in his armour, but had not found
it. It seemed to her that she had no influence over him whatever. She
was of course aware that they lived upon her fortune; but she was aware
also that he knew that it was so, and that the consciousness made him
unhappy. She could not, therefore, even endeavour to minister to his
comfort by surrounding him with pretty things. All expenditure was
grievous to him. The only matter in which she had failed to give way to
any expressed wish had been in that important matter of their town
residence; and, as to that, she had in fact had no power of yielding.
It had been of such moment as to have been settled for her by previous
contract. But, she had often thought, whether in her endeavour to force
herself to be in love with him, she would not persistently demand that
Munster Court should be abandoned, and that all the plea