Her husband she regarded as a brand to be snatched from the
burning, and she and a few select female relatives worked hard to snatch
him. But although new-fangled ideas on social organisation and political
economy were bad enough, one thing alone was beyond all human endurance to
the mind of Mrs. Crawley, and that one thing was free-love.
One day Mr. Crawley brought home "The Woman Who Did," and neglected to
conceal it. It was found by his wife lying on the dining-room sofa.
"My fingers itched to seize and burn the impudent huzzy, lying there as
unconcerned as though she had been the 'Private Meditations and Prayers of
the Rev. Bagge,'" Mrs. Crawley confided to her Aunt Elizabeth, "but it was
a six-shilling book, and I knew how Crawley valued it, and for the life of
me I did not dare touch it."
It was a sore trial indeed to Mrs. Crawley to live under the same roof
with such a person, but she dared not so far outrage the feelings of one
whom she had sworn to love, honour, and obey, as to execute the offending
lady. She long meditated some revenge, some outlet for her outraged
feelings; it was long in coming, but come it did at last. The "Man Who
Didn't" followed in the footsteps of his irregular mate, and in a
fourpenny-halfpenny edition. This was more than the worthy matron could
stand, and either he or she herself must leave the house. She summoned
Aunt Elizabeth, a lady of irreproachable moral standard, the whites of
whose eyes had a habit of turning up spasmodically, and the corners of
whose mouth down, and to her she unburdened her feelings.
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