very early in their married life, in his desire of reading aloud
to her, while she worked. At one time they had tried backgammon
as a resource; but as Mr. Hale grew to take an increasing
interest in his school and his parishioners, he found that the
interruptions which arose out of these duties were regarded as
hardships by his wife, not to be accepted as the natural
conditions of his profession, but to be regretted and struggled
against by her as they severally arose. So he withdrew, while the
children were yet young, into his library, to spend his evenings
(if he were at home), in reading the speculative and metaphysical
books which were his delight.

When Margaret had been here before, she had brought down with her
a great box of books, recommended by masters or governess, and
had found the summer's day all too short to get through the
reading she had to do before her return to town. Now there were
only the well-bound little-read English Classics, which were
weeded out of her father's library to fill up the small
book-shelves in the drawing-room. Thomson's Seasons, Hayley's
Cowper, Middleton's Cicero, were by far the lightest, newest, and
most amusing. The book-shelves did not afford much resource.
Margaret told her mother every particular of her London life, to
all of which Mrs. Hale listened with interest, sometimes amused
and questioning, at others a little inclined to compare her
sister's circumstances of ease and comfort with the narrower
means at Helstone vicarage. On such evenings Margaret was apt to
stop talking rather abruptly, and listen to the drip-drip of the
rain upon the leads of the little bow-window. Once or twice
Margaret found herself mechanically counting the repetition of
the monotonous sound, while she wondered if she might venture to