Rhoda had married the Reverend Marmaduke with her eyes fully opened to the materialistic side of his character. She knew that if she wanted to live happily with him and to exercise that gentle and imperceptible sway, which vulgar people call hen-pecking, she must make dinner the chief study of her life. So long as she gave full satisfaction upon this point; so long as she could maintain a table, in which the homely English virtue of substantial abundance was combined with the artistic variety of French cooking; so long as she anticipated the Rector’s fancies, and forestalled the seasons, she would be sure to please. But an hour’s forgetfulness of his tastes or prejudices, a single failure, an experimental dish, would shatter for the time being the whole fabric of domestic bliss, and weaken her hold of the matrimonial sceptre. The Rector’s wife had considered all this before she took upon herself the responsibilities of married life. Supremely indifferent herself to the pleasures of the table, she had to devote one thoughtful hour of every day to the consideration of what her husband would like to eat, drink, and avoid. She had to project her mind into the future to secure for him novelty of diet. Todd, the housekeeper, had ministered to him for many years, and knew all his tastes: but Mrs. Ferrers wanted to do better than Todd had done, and to prove to the Rector that he had acted wisely in committing himself to the dulcet bondage of matrimony. She was a clever woman—not bookish or highly cultured—but skilled in all the small arts and devices of daily life; and so far she had succeeded admirably. The Rector, granted the supreme indulgence of all his desires, was his wife’s admiring slave. He flattered her, he deferred to her, he praised her, he boasted of her to all his acquaintance as the most perfect thing in wives, just as he boasted of the sleek bay as the paragon of cobs, and his garden as the archetype of gardens. And now for the first time Daphne had to salute this great man in his new character of an uncle. She went up to him timidly; a graceful, gracious figure in a pale yellow batiste gown, a knot of straw-coloured Marguerites shining on her breast, her lovely liquid eyes darkened by the shadow of her Tuscan hat. ‘How do you do, uncle?’ she said, holding out a slender hand, in a long loose Swedish glove. The Rector started, and stared at her dumbly, whether bewildered by so fair a vision, or taken aback by the unexpected assertion of kinsmanship, only he himself knew. ‘Bless my soul!’ he cried. ‘Is this Daphne? Why the child has grown out of all knowledge. How d’ye do, my dear? Very glad to see you. You’ll stop to dinner, of course. You and Turchill. How d’ye do, Turchill?’