With all these hard-set lines of thought, or of doctrine (the scabbard
of thought, which saves its edge, and keeps it out of mischief), Stephen
Anerley was not hard, or stern, or narrow-hearted. Kind, and gentle, and
good to every one who knew "how to behave himself," and dealing to
every man full justice--meted by his own measure--he was liable even
to generous acts, after being severe and having his own way. But if any
body ever got the better of him by lies, and not fair bettering, that
man had wiser not begin to laugh inside the Riding. Stephen Anerley
was slow but sure; not so very keen, perhaps, but grained with kerns
of maxim'd thought, to meet his uses as they came, and to make a rogue
uneasy. To move him from such thoughts was hard; but to move him from a
spoken word had never been found possible.

The wife of this solid man was solid and well fitted to him. In early
days, by her own account, she had possessed considerable elegance, and
was not devoid of it even now, whenever she received a visitor capable
of understanding it. But for home use that gift had been cut short,
almost in the honey-moon, by a total want of appreciation on the part
of her husband. And now, after five-and-twenty years of studying and
entering into him, she had fairly earned his firm belief that she was
the wisest of women. For she always agreed with him, when he wished it;
and she knew exactly when to contradict him, and that was before he had
said a thing at all, and while he was rolling it slowly in his mind,
with a strong tendency against it. In out-door matters she never
meddled, without being specially consulted by the master; but in-doors
she governed with watchful eyes, a firm hand, and a quiet tongue.

This good woman now was five-and-forty years of age, vigorous, clean,
and of a very pleasant look, with that richness of color which settles