her mother and sister. For Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Scott had no idols to
shatter, no enthusiasm to subdue. Firmly and unalterably conscious
of their own superiority to the life they led and the community that
surrounded them, they accepted their duties cheerfully, and performed
them conscientiously. Those duties were loyalty to Hale's interests and
a vague missionary work among the neighbors, which, like most missionary
work, consisted rather in making their own ideas understood than in
understanding the ideas of their audience. Old Mrs. Scott's zeal was
partly religious, an inheritance from her Puritan ancestry; Mrs. Hale's
was the affability of a gentlewoman and the obligation of her position.
To this was added the slight languor of the cultivated American wife,
whose health has been affected by the birth of her first child, and
whose views of marriage and maternity were slightly tinged with gentle
scepticism. She was sincerely attached to her husband, "who dominated
the household" like the rest of his "women folk," with the faint
consciousness of that division of service which renders the position
of the sultan of a seraglio at once so prominent and so precarious. The
attitude of John Hale in his family circle was dominant because it had
never been subjected to criticism or comparison; and perilous for the
same reason.

Mrs. Hale presently joined her sister in the veranda, and, shading her
eyes with a narrow white hand, glanced on the prospect with a polite
interest and ladylike urbanity. The searching sun, which, as Miss Kate
once intimated, was "vulgarity itself," stared at her in return, but
could not call a blush to her somewhat sallow cheek. Neither could it
detract, however, from the delicate prettiness of her refined face with
its soft gray shadows, or the dark gentle eyes, whose blue-veined lids
were just then wrinkled into coquettishly mischievous lines by the
strong light. She was taller and thinner than Kate, and had at times a