A man may purchase an estate, a tenement, or a horse, because they have
pleased his fancy, and eventually find out that he has not exactly
suited himself; and it sometimes will occur that a man is placed in a
similar situation relative to his choice of a wife:--a more serious
evil; as, although the prime cost may be nothing, there is no chance of
getting rid of this latter speculation by re-vending, as you may the
former. Now it happened that Nicholas Forster, of whom we have already
made slight mention, although he considered at the time of his marriage
that the person he had selected would _exactly suit his focus_, did
eventually discover that he was more short-sighted in his choice than an
optician ought to have been.

Whatever may have been the personal charms of Mrs Nicholas Forster at
the time of their union, she had, at the period of our narrative, but
few to boast of, being a thin, sharp-nosed, ferret-eyed little woman,
teeming with suspicion, jealousy, and bad humours of every description:
her whole employment (we may say, her whole delight) was in finding
fault: her shrill voice was to be heard from the other side of the
street from morning until night. The one servant which their finances
enabled them with difficulty to retain, and whom they engaged as a maid
of all work (and certainly she was not permitted by Mrs Forster to be
idle in her multifarious duty), seldom remained above her _month_; and
nothing but the prospect of immediate starvation could induce any one to
offer herself in the capacity.

Mr Nicholas Forster, fortunately for his own happiness, was of, that
peculiar temperament that nothing could completely rouse his anger: he
was _absent_ to an excess; and if any language or behaviour on the part