yet we are to remember he was married in pity, and accepted his
wife upon that term. And, indeed, he had small encouragement to
make a stand. Once, I remember, he announced he had found a man to
replace the pane of the stained window, which, as it was he that
managed all the business, was a thing clearly within his
attributions. But to the Master's fancies, that pane was like a
relic; and on the first word of any change, the blood flew to Mrs.
Henry's face.

"I wonder at you!" she cried.

"I wonder at myself," says Mr. Henry, with more of bitterness than
I had ever heard him to express.

Thereupon my old lord stepped in with his smooth talk, so that
before the meal was at an end all seemed forgotten; only that,
after dinner, when the pair had withdrawn as usual to the chimney-
side, we could see her weeping with her head upon his knee. Mr.
Henry kept up the talk with me upon some topic of the estates - he
could speak of little else but business, and was never the best of
company; but he kept it up that day with more continuity, his eye
straying ever and again to the chimney, and his voice changing to
another key, but without check of delivery. The pane, however, was
not replaced; and I believe he counted it a great defeat.

Whether he was stout enough or no, God knows he was kind enough.
Mrs. Henry had a manner of condescension with him, such as (in a
wife) would have pricked my vanity into an ulcer; he took it like a
favour. She held him at the staff's end; forgot and then
remembered and unbent to him, as we do to children; burthened him