the part of his wife. Elsie fought desperately to maintain her position
as head of the family. By way of humiliating her husband she flirted
with an openness which won for her a reputation by no means to be
envied, and she wantonly trampled on his wishes. Given a husband,
however, with an iron will and a fibre not too fine, with a good temper
and yet with a certain ruthlessness in asserting his sway, and there
is little doubt that in the end he will triumph. If a clever, handsome,
good-humored man does not subdue a wild, headstrong wife, it is almost
surely owing to over-delicacy; and Chauncy Wilson was never hampered by
this. Elsie plunged and reared when she felt the curb,--to use a figure
which in those days might have been her own,--but she was by a
judicious application of whip and spur taught that she had found her
master. The result was that she became not only manageable, but
devotedly fond of her husband. No woman was ever mastered and treated
with kindness who did not thereupon love. Dr. Wilson was too good-
natured to be unkind, and for the most part he allowed his wife to have
her way, fully aware that he had but to speak to restrain her; and thus
it came about that the household was on a most peaceful and
satisfactory basis.

Mrs. Wilson, however, craved excitement, and ethical amusements she
laughed to scorn. She did, it is true, take up high-church piety, which
she treated, as Mrs. Staggchase did not hesitate to say, as a
plaything; but her interest in church matters was chiefly in the line
of politics. She took charge of the affairs of the Church of the
Nativity with a high hand which abashed and disquieted the devout
rector. She liked Mr. Candish, although she did not hesitate to jest at
his unpolished manners and rather unprepossessing person, and it was
inevitable that she should be unable to appreciate his self-denying
devotion. On one or two occasions she had found him to have a will not