upbringing.

Over and above all, was the damning lip-strapped Waterbury, ticking
away in the palm of her shaking, withered hand. At that hour, I
think, the Colonel's Wife realized a little of the restless
suspicions she had injected into old Laplace's mind, a little of
poor Miss Haughtrey's misery, and some of the canker that ate into
Buxton's heart as he watched his wife dying before his eyes. The
Colonel stammered and tried to explain. Then he remembered that
his watch had disappeared; and the mystery grew greater. The
Colonel's Wife talked and prayed by turns till she was tired, and
went away to devise means for "chastening the stubborn heart of her
husband." Which translated, means, in our slang, "tail-twisting."

You see, being deeply impressed with the doctrine of Original Sin,
she could not believe in the face of appearances. She knew too
much, and jumped to the wildest conclusions.

But it was good for her. It spoilt her life, as she had spoilt the
life of the Laplaces. She had lost her faith in the Colonel, and--
here the creed-suspicion came in--he might, she argued, have erred
many times, before a merciful Providence, at the hands of so
unworthy an instrument as Mrs. Larkyn, had established his guilt.
He was a bad, wicked, gray-haired profligate. This may sound too
sudden a revulsion for a long-wedded wife; but it is a venerable
fact that, if a man or woman makes a practice of, and takes a
delight in, believing and spreading evil of people indifferent to
him or her, he or she will end in believing evil of folk very near
and dear. You may think, also, that the mere incident of the watch
was too small and trivial to raise this misunderstanding. It is