Did he keep the windows shut, she wondered what he was made of to sit in such a suffocating room; did he fling them wide open in the morning, he knew she detested a draught, and the sight of that glitter on the sea; did he wish to ride, she thought he might have more consideration than to propose his wife mounting a hired horse; did he suggest driving, she wondered, if he were so fond of seeing the country, he had not brought down his servants and carriages, as other people did; did he offer to walk with her, she was invariably tired; did he even mention leaving the house without her, she thought, “considering he favoured her with so little of his society, he might remain indoors for half an hour in the course of the day; did he go out in a boat, she might as well have married a London tradesman; did he finally ask her what the devil she would have him do, since he had come to the slowest place on earth to please her and not himself, she replied, that if he had not sufficiently gentlemanly, or even manly, feeling to know how to treat his wife properly, it was a pity he ever married any one higher in rank than some poor factory girl.” “I could not have married you, remember,” answered Mr. Croft, “had you not first jilted Dudley;” whereupon she sighed, “Poor Arthur!” and declared “_he_ never would have broken a woman’s heart.” “You would very soon have broken his,” retorted her husband; “though, upon my honour, Dudley is the only man I should not have pitied seeing married to you.” “Because you admire that creature with red hair, whom he chose after me! after me by way of contrast, I suppose. Oh! she has not red hair? I confess I was under the delusion she had; but no doubt your opportunities of judging have been greater than mine. She is a very pretty woman, you say; of course you think every woman pretty, excepting your own wife. She is the kind of creature some men do admire, and she has that manner—that meek, mild, submissive, milk-and-water manner—which always makes me long to strike her and ask how she likes _that_. I do detest those amiable hypocrites. It is a pity you cannot get rid of me, and marry her.” “If I were to marry all the women I admire, I should have as many wives as Brigham Young,” answered Mr. Croft; “besides, I am not quite certain that Mrs. Dudley is my style. She has too much of the angel about her; certainly, ‘extremes meet’; but still, after you, that change would be almost too severe:” and so the pair were wont to wrangle on, while Mr. Stewart sat calmly reading the _Times_, or else remarked that he never so much regretted his single condition as when he witnessed his nephew’s connubial felicity. “It is all his fault,” Mrs. Croft was in the habit of asserting, to which Mr. Stewart invariably made reply: “I know that, my dear Arabella, perfectly well; no wife ever is in fault.” “Mrs. Dudley could not be, we may suppose,” Mrs. Croft snapped back, on the day following her quarrel with Heather.