at seven? And, besides, the Captain might come home with some of
his great friends, and he always swore and grumbled much if he found
his mother-in-law on the premises. As for Morgiana, she was one of
those women who encourage despotism in husbands. What the husband
says must be right, because he says it; what he orders must be
obeyed tremblingly. Mrs. Walker gave up her entire reason to her
lord. Why was it? Before marriage she had been an independent
little person; she had far more brains than her Howard. I think it
must have been his moustaches that frightened her, and caused in her
this humility.

Selfish husbands have this advantage in maintaining with easy-minded
wives a rigid and inflexible behaviour, viz. that if they DO by any
chance grant a little favour, the ladies receive it with such
transports of gratitude as they would never think of showing to a
lord and master who was accustomed to give them everything they
asked for; and hence, when Captain Walker signified his assent to
his wife's prayer that she should take a singing-master, she thought
his generosity almost divine, and fell upon her mamma's neck, when
that lady came the next day, and said what a dear adorable angel her
Howard was, and what ought she not to do for a man who had taken her
from her humble situation, and raised her to be what she was! What
she was, poor soul! She was the wife of a swindling parvenu
gentleman. She received visits from six ladies of her husband's
acquaintances--two attorneys' ladies, his bill-broker's lady, and
one or two more, of whose characters we had best, if you please, say
nothing; and she thought it an honour to be so distinguished: as if
Walker had been a Lord Exeter to marry a humble maiden, or a noble
prince to fall in love with a humble Cinderella, or a majestic Jove
to come down from heaven and woo a Semele. Look through the world,