"
"I can see her quite distinctly. You said the other day that she was
fine in figure; roundly built; had deep red lips like Cupid's bow;
dark eyelashes and brows, an immense rope of hair like a ship's
cable; and large eyes violety-bluey-blackish."
"I did, mother."
"I quite see her. And living in such seclusion she naturally had
scarce ever seen any young man from the world without till she saw
you."
"Scarcely."
"You were her first love?"
"Of course."
"There are worse wives than these simple, rosy-mouthed, robust girls
of the farm. Certainly I could have wished--well, since my son is to
be an agriculturist, it is perhaps but proper that his wife should
have been accustomed to an outdoor life."
His father was less inquisitive; but when the time came for the
chapter from the Bible which was always read before evening prayers,
the Vicar observed to Mrs Clare--
"I think, since Angel has come, that it will be more appropriate to
read the thirty-first of Proverbs than the chapter which we should
have had in the usual course of our reading?"
"Yes, certainly," said Mrs Clare. "The words of King Lemuel" (she
could cite chapter and verse as well as her husband). "My dear son,
your father has decided to read us the chapter in Proverbs in praise
of a virtuous wife.
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