the Dudgeons.

But there is a difference, for all that. To begin with, Mrs.
Anderson is a pleasanter person to live with than Mrs. Dudgeon.
To which Mrs. Dudgeon would at once reply, with reason, that Mrs.
Anderson has no children to look after; no poultry, pigs nor
cattle; a steady and sufficient income not directly dependent
on harvests and prices at fairs; an affectionate husband who is a
tower of strength to her: in short, that life is as easy at the
minister's house as it is hard at the farm. This is true; but to
explain a fact is not to alter it; and however little credit Mrs.
Anderson may deserve for making her home happier, she has
certainly succeeded in doing it. The outward and visible signs of
her superior social pretensions are a drugget on the floor, a
plaster ceiling between the timbers and chairs which, though not
upholstered, are stained and polished. The fine arts are
represented by a mezzotint portrait of some Presbyterian divine,
a copperplate of Raphael's St. Paul preaching at Athens, a rococo
presentation clock on the mantelshelf, flanked by a couple of
miniatures, a pair of crockery dogs with baskets in their mouths,
and, at the corners, two large cowrie shells. A pretty feature of
the room is the low wide latticed window, nearly its whole width,
with little red curtains running on a rod half way up it to serve
as a blind. There is no sofa; but one of the seats, standing near
the press, has a railed back and is long enough to accommodate
two people easily. On the whole, it is rather the sort of room
that the nineteenth century has ended in struggling to get back
to under the leadership of Mr. Philip Webb and his disciples in
domestic architecture, though no genteel clergyman would have
tolerated it fifty years ago.