All this, however, was in the early days of the marriage, before Dr. Wilson had become accustomed to his position as husband of the richest woman in town and a member of what was to him the sacred aristocracy. When the time came that he had found his place and entered his veto upon these wild doings, there was an instant and determined revolt on the part of his wife. Elsie fought desperately to maintain her position as head of the family. By way of humiliating her husband she flirted with an openness which won for her a reputation by no means to be envied, and she wantonly trampled on his wishes. Given a husband, however, with an iron will and a fibre not too fine, with a good temper and yet with a certain ruthlessness in asserting his sway, and there is little doubt that in the end he will triumph. If a clever, handsome, good-humored man does not subdue a wild, headstrong wife, it is almost surely owing to over-delicacy; and Chauncy Wilson was never hampered by this. Elsie plunged and reared when she felt the curb,--to use a figure which in those days might have been her own,--but she was by a judicious application of whip and spur taught that she had found her master. The result was that she became not only manageable, but devotedly fond of her husband. No woman was ever mastered and treated with kindness who did not thereupon love. Dr. Wilson was too good-natured to be unkind, and for the most part he allowed his wife to have her way, fully aware that he had but to speak to restrain her; and thus it came about that the household was on a most peaceful and satisfactory basis. Mrs. Wilson, however, craved excitement, and ethical amusements she laughed to scorn. She did, it is true, take up high-church piety, which she treated, as Mrs. Staggchase did not hesitate to say, as a plaything; but her interest in church matters was chiefly in the line of politics. She took charge of the affairs of the Church of the Nativity with a high hand which abashed and disquieted the devout rector. She liked Mr. Candish, although she did not hesitate to jest at his unpolished manners and rather unprepossessing person, and it was inevitable that she should be unable to appreciate his self-denying devotion. On one or two occasions she had found him to have a will not inferior to her own; and although she resented whatever balked her pleasure, she was yet a woman and respected power in a man.