"I hope you didn't say so to her, Martha."
"Not I, my dear! She came complaining to me that it was but a poor settling for her, but I soon cheered her up. 'Eunice,' says I, 'with such a plain face as yours it is a wonder you've got a husband at all—let alone the sort; and you ought to be thankful, instead of finding fault.' That was the way to look at the matter, to my thinking, and I soon made Eunice see it in the same light."
"Was Eunice happy when she was married?" Joanna asked.
"As happy as any woman could be with a man tied to her for the rest of her days; but, as you know, I don't hold with the men, miss. They are troublesome creatures, especially all of them."
"They are indeed," exclaimed Joanna with amusement.
"You see, miss, my mother always said that the troubles which came direct from the Lord, she could bear without murmuring; but the troubles which came from father's stupidity were a different thing, and she hadn't common patience with them. Many a time has she passed the remark that, if a woman has got a husband, she spends all her life in bearing for him the consequences of the things she particularly told him not to do."
Joanna nodded. "That must really be very irritating! It would try me more than anything."
"And me too, miss. There is nothing like a man for trying the temper. Mark my word, it is because there is no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven that the temper of an angel is the temper of an angel. If the angels had got husbands, there'd be a different tale about their tempers, I'll be bound!"