She was also ambitious, as far as
she had scope for it, within her sphere of life, and would have been
painfully penurious in her family, were it not that the fiery resolution
of her husband, when excited by long and intolerable provocation, was at
all times able to subdue her--a superiority over her will and authority
which she never forgave him. In fact, she neither loved himself,
nor anything in common with him; and the natural affection which he
displayed on the return of her son was one reason why she received him
with such apparent indifference. To all the rest of the family she had a
heart of stone. Since her second marriage they had lost three children;
but, so far as she was concerned, each of them went down into a tearless
grave. She had once been handsome; but her beauty, like her son's, was
severe and disagreeable. There is, however, such a class of beauty, and
it is principally successful with men who have a penchant for overcoming
difficulties, because it is well known that the fact of conciliating or
subduing it is justly considered no ordinary achievement.
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