teeth, her immense bustle and her large tortoiseshell card-case, about to disappear for an entire afternoon, was a pleasant sight for all the persons at the rectory who loved a little freedom of speech and action. Usually Mrs. Eaton took her two dear, beautiful daughters with her. To the very moment of departure her mouth was filled with directions and admonitions.
Poor Mr. Eaton had long since come to the conclusion that a man's hell is not hereafter, but here, and that some woman, or a combination of them, make it for him. His own mother had hounded him into Holy Orders. His marriage had been another case of special pleading. He loved beauty, music, colors, flowers, and it had not been his natural instinct to marry a woman with a face like a horse and a shelf of projecting teeth. But politeness and courtesy and consideration were natural to him. These'he had exhibited to her, and they had been magnified into marked and even compromising attentions. The first thing that he knew he was going to be married to a woman whom he did not love. He tried to make her a good husband.
Well, when the Reverend Mrs. Eaton and her two handsome daughters went visiting, the males of the family were free from care and happier than at any other time.
