An Imaginnative Woman

When William Marchmill had finished his inquiries for lodgings at a well-
known watering-place in Upper Wessex, he returned to the hotel to find
his wife.  She, with the children, had rambled along the shore, and
Marchmill followed in the direction indicated by the military-looking
hall-porter
'By Jove, how far you've gone!  I am quite out of breath,' Marchmill
said, rather impatiently, when he came up with his wife, who was reading
as she walked, the three children being considerably further ahead with
the nurse.
Mrs. Marchmill started out of the reverie into which the book had thrown
her.  'Yes,' she said, 'you've been such a long time.  I was tired of
staying in that dreary hotel.  But I am sorry if you have wanted me,
Will?'
'Well, I have had trouble to suit myself.  When you see the airy and
comfortable rooms heard of, you find they are stuffy and uncomfortable.sB
Will you come and see if what I've fixed on will do?  There is not much
room, I am afraid; hut I can light on nothing better.  The town is rather
full.'
The pair left the children and nurse to continue their ramble, and went
back together.
In age well-balanced, in personal appearance fairly matched, and in
domestic requirements conformable, in temper this couple differed, though
even here they did not often clash, he being equable, if not lymphatic,
and she decidedly nervous and sanguine.  It was to their tastes and
fancies, those smallest, greatest particulars, that no common denominator
could be applied.  Marchmill considered his wife's likes and inclinations
somewhat silly; she considered his sordid and material.  The husband's
business was that of a gunmaker in a thriving city northwards, and his
soul was in that business always; the lady was best characterized by that
superannuated phrase of elegance 'a votary of the muse.'  An
impressionable, palpitating creature was Ella, shrinking humanely from
detailed knowledge of her husband's trade whenever she reflected that
everything he manufactured had for its purpose the destruction of life.
She could only recover her equanimity by assuring herself that some, at
least, of his weapons were sooner or later used for the extermination of
horrid vermin and animals almost as cruel to their inferiors in species
as human beings were to theirs.
She had never antecedently regarded this occupation of his as any
objection to having him for a husband.  Indeed, the necessity of getting
life-leased at all cost, a cardinal virtue which all good mothers teach,
kept her from thinking of it at all till she had closed with William, had
passed the honeymoon, and reached the reflecting stage.  Then, like a
person who has stumbled upon some object in the dark, she wondered what
she had got; mentally walked round it, estimated it; whether it were rare
or common; contained gold, silver, or lead; were a clog or a pedestal,
everything to her or nothing.
She came to some vague conclusions, and since then had kept her heart