as possible. “Bless me!” cried Mrs. Porkington, within six months of her marriage, “To think that you should have squandered such large sums of money upon people who seem to have got on very well without them.” “My dear,” replied he, “they are very poor, and in want of many comforts.” “Of course I am sorry they cannot have them now,” retorted she, “and it is therefore a pity they ever should have had them.” Porkington sighed slightly, but had already learned not to contend, if he could remember not to do so. Mrs. Porkington was of large stature and majestic carriage; and had moreover a voice sufficiently powerful to keep order in an Irish brigade, or to command a vessel in a storm without the assistance of a trumpet. p. 64Mr. Porkington, on the other hand, was a little, dry, pale, plain man, with an abstracted and nervous manner, and a voice that had never grown up so as to match even the little body from which it came, but was a sort of cracked treble whisper. Moreover, when Mrs. Porkington wished to speak her mind to her husband, she would recline upon a sofa in an impressive manner, and fix her eyes upon the ceiling. Mr. Porkington, on these occasions, would sit on the very edge of the most uncomfortable chair, his toes turned out, his hands embracing his knees, and his eyes tracing the patterns upon the carpet, as though with a view of studying some abstruse theory of curves. On which side the victory lay under these circumstances it is easy to guess. p. 64 Mrs. Porkington felt the advantage of her position and followed it up. “I never, my dear, mention any subject to you, but you immediately fling your parents at me.” Mr. Porkington would as soon have thought of throwing St. Paul’s Cathedral. After a honeymoon spent in the Lake district the happy pair went to pay a visit to the parents of the bridegroom, and Porkington had so brightened and revived during his stay there, and had expressed himself so happy in their society, that Mrs. Porkington could not forgive him. In the company of his wife’s father, on the contrary, he relapsed into a state bordering upon coma; and no wonder, for that worthy retired tallow merchant was a perfect specimen of ponderous pomposity, and had absolutely nothing in common with the shy scholar who had become his son-in-law. Mr. Candlish had lost the great part of the money he had made by tallow,
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