and at length entirely devoured, his chagrin; the terrors of superior
authority were plainly perceivable in his features; and in less
than three months he became a thorough-paced husband. Not that his
obstinacy was extinguished, though overcome. In some things he was
as inflexible and mulish as ever; but then he durst not kick so
openly, and was reduced to the necessity of being passive in his
resentments. Mrs. Trunnion, for example, proposed that a coach and
six should be purchased, as she could not ride on horseback, and
the chaise was a scandalous carriage for a person of her condition.
The commodore, conscious of his own inferior capacity in point of
reasoning, did not think proper to dispute the proposal but lent a
deaf ear to her repeated remonstrances, though they were enforced
with every argument which she thought could soothe, terrify, shame
or decoy him into compliance. In vain did she urge the excess of
affection she had for him as meriting some return of tenderness
and condescension: he was even proof against certain menacing hints
she gave touching the resentment of a slighted woman; and he stood
out against all the considerations of dignity or disgrace like a
bulwark of brass. Neither was he moved to any indecent or unkind
expressions of contradiction, even when she upbraided him with his
sordid disposition, and put him in mind of the fortune and honour
he had acquired by his marriage, but seemed to retire within himself,
like a tortoise when attacked, that shrinks within its shell, and
silently endured the scourge of her reproaches, without seeming
sensible of the smart.

This, however, was the only point in which she had been baffled since
her nuptials; and as she could by no means digest the miscarriage,
she tortured her invention for some new plan by which she might
augment her influence and authority. What her genius refused was