The next year, perhaps in order to deserve an equally valuable gift
(which she obtained), she presented her husband with twin daughters; and
was rather pleased than otherwise to find that he was glad, and that he
admired and loved his children.

Mrs. John Mortimer felt a decided preference for her husband over any
other young man; she liked him, besides which he had been a most
desirable match for her in point of circumstances; but when her first
child was born to her she knew, for the first time in her life, what it
was to feel a real and warm affection. She loved her baby; she may have
been said, without exaggeration, to have loved him very much; she had
thenceforward no time to attend to John, but she always ruled over his
household beautifully, made his friends welcome, and endeared herself to
her father-in-law by keeping the most perfect accounts, never persuading
John into any kind of extravagance, and always receiving hints from
headquarters with the greatest deference.

The only defect her father-in-law had, in her opinion, was that he was
so inconveniently religious; his religion was inconvenient not only in
degree but in kind. It troubled her peace to come in contact with states
of mind very far removed not only from what she felt, but what she
wished to feel. If John's father had set before her anything that she
and John could do, or any opinion that they might hold, she thought she
should have been able to please him, for she considered herself quite
inclined to do her duty by her church and her soul in a serious and
sensible manner; but to take delight in religion, to add the love of the
unseen Father to the fear and reverence that she wanted to cultivate,
was something that it alarmed her to think of.