Fred liked it too, knowing it by heart even to the attic which smelt deliciously of apples and quinces, and until today he had never come to it without pleasant expectations; but his heart beat uneasily now with the sense that he should probably have to make his confession before Mrs. Garth, of whom he was rather more in awe than of her husband.
Not that she was inclined to sarcasm and to impulsive sallies, as Mary was.
In her present matronly age at least, Mrs. Garth never committed herself by overhasty speech; having, as she said, borne the yoke in her youth, and learned self-control. She had that rare sense which discerns what is unalterable, and submits to it without murmuring.
Adoring her husband’s virtues, she had very early made up her mind to his incapacity of minding his own interests, and had met the consequences cheerfully. She had been magnanimous enough to renounce all pride in teapots or children’s frilling, and had never poured any pathetic confidences into the ears of her feminine neighbors concerning Mr. Garth’s want of prudence and the sums he might have had if he had been like other men.
Hence these fair neighbors thought her either proud or eccentric, and sometimes spoke of her to their husbands as “your fine Mrs. Garth.”
She was not without her criticism of them in return, being more accurately instructed than most matrons in Middlemarch, and—where is the blameless woman?—apt to be a little severe towards her own sex, which in her opinion was framed to be entirely subordinate. On the other hand, she was disproportionately indulgent towards the failings of men, and was often heard to say that these were natural. Also, it must be admitted that Mrs. Garth was a trifle too emphatic in her resistance to what she held to be follies: the passage from governess into housewife had wrought itself a little too strongly into her consciousness, and she