“It’s your brother’s way, Mrs Moss; I’d never anything o’ that sort before I was married,” said Mrs Tulliver, with a half-implied reproach. She always spoke of her husband as “your brother” to Mrs Moss in any case when his line of conduct was not matter of pure admiration. Amiable Mrs Tulliver, who was never angry in her life, had yet her mild share of that spirit without which she could hardly have been at once a Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defensive toward her own sisters, it was natural that she should be keenly conscious of her superiority, even as the weakest Dodson, over a husband’s sister, who, besides being poorly off, and inclined to “hang on” her brother, had the good-natured submissiveness of a large, easy-tempered, untidy, prolific woman, with affection enough in her not only for her own husband and abundant children, but for any number of collateral relations. “I hope and pray he won’t go to law,” said Mrs Moss, “for there’s never any knowing where that’ll end. And the right doesn’t allays win. This Mr Pivart’s a rich man, by what I can make out, and the rich mostly get things their own way.” “As to that,” said Mrs Tulliver, stroking her dress down, “I’ve seen what riches are in my own family; for my sisters have got husbands as can afford to do pretty much what they like. But I think sometimes I shall be drove off my head with the talk about this law and erigation; and my sisters lay all the fault to me, for they don’t know what it is to marry a man like your brother; how should they? Sister Pullet has her own way from morning till night.” “Well,” said Mrs Moss, “I don’t think I should like my husband if he hadn’t got any wits of his own, and I had to find head-piece for him. It’s a deal easier to do what pleases one’s husband, than to be puzzling what else one should do.” “If people come to talk o’ doing what pleases their husbands,” said Mrs Tulliver, with a faint imitation of her sister Glegg, “I’m sure your brother might have waited a long while before he’d have found a wife that ’ud have let him have his say in everything, as I do. It’s nothing but law and erigation now, from when we first get up in the morning till we go to bed at night; and I never contradict him; I only say, ‘Well, Mr Tulliver, do as you like; but whativer you do, don’t go to law.”