(and I) are all wrong." As surely as the autumn holiday season set in,
so surely Old Ronald resisted his wife's petition for a change of scene
in that form of words. A man habitually fortified behind his own inbred
obstinacy and selfishness is for the most part an irresistible power
within the limits of his domestic circle. As a rule, patient Mrs.
Ronald yielded; and her husband stood revealed to his neighbours in the
glorious character of a married man who had his own way.

But in the autumn of 1856, the retribution which sooner or later
descends on all despotisms, great and small, overtook the iron rule of
Old Ronald, and defeated the domestic tyrant on the battle-field of his
own fireside.

The children born of the marriage, two in number, were both daughters.
The elder had mortally offended her father by marrying imprudently--in
a pecuniary sense. He had declared that she should never enter his
house again; and he had mercilessly kept his word. The younger daughter
(now eighteen years of age) proved to be also a source of parental
inquietude, in another way. She was the passive cause of the revolt
which set her father's authority at defiance. For some little time past
she had been out of health. After many ineffectual trials of the mild
influence of persuasion, her mother's patience at last gave way. Mrs.
Ronald insisted--yes, actually insisted--on taking Miss Emma to the
seaside.

"What's the matter with you?" Old Ronald asked; detecting something
that perplexed him in his wife's look and manner, on the memorable
occasion when she asserted a will of her own for the first time in her
life.