must be considered, she
knew, for in fact everything depended on him.

John had been married the day he came of age. His father had wished it
greatly: he thought it a fine thing for a man to marry early, if he
could afford it. The bride wished it also, but the person who wished it
most of all was her mother, who managed to make John think he wished it
too, and so, with a certain moderation of feeling, he did; and if things
had not been made so exceedingly easy for him, he might have attained
almost to fervour on the occasion.

As it was, being young for his years, as well as in fact, he had hardly
forgotten to pride himself on having a house of his own, and reached the
dignified age of twenty-two, when Mrs. John Mortimer, presenting him
with a son, made a man of him in a day, and threw his boyish thoughts
into the background. To his own astonishment, he found himself greatly
pleased with his heir. His father was pleased also, and wrote to the
young mother something uncommonly like a letter of thanks, at the same
time presenting her with a carriage and horses.

The next year, perhaps in order to deserve an equally valuable gift
(which she obtained), she presented her husband with twin daughters; and
was rather pleased than otherwise to find that he was glad, and that he
admired and loved his children.

Mrs. John Mortimer felt a decided preference for her husband over any
other young man; she liked him, besides which he had been a most
desirable match for her in point of circumstances; but when her first
child was born to her she knew, for the first time in her life, what it
was to feel a real and warm affection. She loved her baby; she may have
been said, without exaggeration, to have loved him very much; she had
thenceforward no time to attend to John, but she always ruled over his
household beautifully, made his friends welcome, and endeared herself to
her father-in-law by keeping the most perfect accounts, never persuading
John into any kind of extravagance, and always receiving hints from
headquarters with the greatest deference.

The only defect her father-in-law had, in her opinion, was that he was
so inconveniently religious; his religion was inconvenient not only in
degree but in kind. It troubled her peace to come in contact with states
of mind very far removed not only from what she felt, but what she
wished to feel. If John's father had set before her anything that she
and John could do, or any opinion th