nice marriage," and on the whole, regarding it from the impartial
standpoint of Posterity, the universe may be said to have been
justified in its opinion.

Lady Isabel Christian was the daughter of an English Earl, and she
brought with her to Mount Music twenty thousand golden sovereigns,
which are very nice things, and Lady Isabel herself was indisputably a
nice thing too. She was tall and fair, and quite pretty enough (as
Dick's female relatives said, non-committally). She was sufficiently
musical to play the organ in church (which is also a statement
provided with an ample margin); she was a docile and devoted wife, a
futile and extravagant house-keeper, kindly and unpunctual, prolific
without resentment; she regarded with mild surprise the large and
strenuous family that rushed past her, as a mountain torrent might
rush past an untidy flower garden, and, after nearly fourteen years of
maternal experience, she had abandoned the search for a point of
contact with their riotous souls, and contented herself with an
indiscriminate affection for their very creditable bodies. Lady Isabel
had--if the saying may be reversed--"_les qualités de ses défauts_,"
and these latter could have no environment less critical and more
congenial than that in which it had pleased her mother to place her.
It was right and fitting that the wife of the reigning Talbot-Lowry of
Mount Music, should inevitably lead the way at local dinner-parties;
should, with ladylike inaudibleness, declare that "this Bazaar" or
"Village Hall" was open. It was no more than the duty of Major
Talbot-Lowry (D.L., and J.P.) to humanity, that his race should
multiply and replenish the earth, and Lady Isabel had unrepiningly
obliged humanity to the extent of four sons and two daughters. Major
Dick's interest in the multiplication was, perhaps, more abstract than
hers.