Mr. Garth was not at the office, and Fred rode on to his house, which

was a little way outside the town--a homely place with an orchard in

front of it, a rambling, old-fashioned, half-timbered building, which

before the town had spread had been a farm-house, but was now

surrounded with the private gardens of the townsmen. We get the fonder

of our houses if they have a physiognomy of their own, as our friends

have. The Garth family, which was rather a large one, for Mary had

four brothers and one sister, were very fond of their old house, from

which all the best furniture had long been sold. Fred liked it too,

knowing it by heart even to the attic which smelt deliciously of apples

and quinces, and until to-day he had never come to it without pleasant

expectations; but his heart beat uneasily now with the sense that he

should probably have to make his confession before Mrs. Garth, of whom

he was rather more in awe than of her husband. Not that she was

inclined to sarcasm and to impulsive sallies, as Mary was. In her

present matronly age at least, Mrs. Garth never committed herself by

over-hasty speech; having, as she said, borne the yoke in her youth,

and learned self-control. She had that rare sense which discerns what

is unalterable, and submits to it without murmuring. Adoring her

husband's virtues, she had very early made up her mind to his

incapacity of minding his own interests, and had met the consequences

cheerfully. She had been magnanimous enough to renounce all pride in

teapots or children's frilling, and had never poured any pathetic

confidences into the ears of her feminine neighbors concerning Mr.

Garth's want of prudence and the sums he might have had if he had been

like other men. Hence these fair neighbors thought her either proud or

eccentric, and sometimes spoke of her to their husbands as "your fine

Mrs. Garth." She was not without her criticism of them in return, being

more accurately instructed than most matrons in Middlemarch, and--where

is the blameless woman?--apt to be a little severe towards her own sex,

which in her opinion was framed to be entirely subordinate. On the

other hand, she was disproportionately indulgent towards the failings

of men, and was often heard to say that these were natural. Also, it

must be admitted that Mrs. Garth was a trifle too emphatic in her

resistance to what she held to be follies: the passage from governess

into housewife had wrought itself a little too strongly into her

consciousness, and she rarely forgot that while her grammar and accent

were above the town standard, she wore a plain cap, cooked the family

dinner, and darned all the stockings. She had sometimes taken pupils

in a peripatetic fashion, making them follow her about in the kitchen

with their book or slate. She thought it good for them to see that she

could make an excellent lather while she corrected their blunders

"without looking,"--that a woman with her sleeves tucked up above her

elbows might know all about the Subjunctive Mood or the Torrid

Zone--that, in short, she might possess "education" and other good

things ending in "tion," and worthy to be pronounced emphatically,

without being a useless doll. When she made remarks to this edifying

effect, she had a firm little frown on her brow, which yet did not

hinder her face from looking benevolent, and her words which came forth

like a procession were uttered in a fervid agreeable contralto.

Certainly, the exemplary Mrs. Garth had her droll aspects, but her

character sustained her oddities, as a very fine wine sustains a flavor

of skin.




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