“It suggests the rhyme of the ten little nigger boys,” she said. “Six women in one house; one of them married, and then there were five.”
Later, when Prudence had gone upstairs to her room, Mrs Morgan voiced her opinion of her to her son in a single expressive phrase.
“I am afraid, Edward, that your choice has fallen on a rather frivolous girl.”
Chapter Twenty Six.
Alone in the spacious bedroom allotted to her, Prudence spent the rest time allowed her before dinner in the indulgence of her favourite occupation, leaning from the window, lost in a maze of thought. It struck her very forcibly with not the slightest intimation of doubt that six women in a household were less assertively too many than two women—two women with conflicting interests and equal authority. She determined that she would not consent to live with a mother-in-law. It was very plain to her that in the event of Mrs Morgan sharing their home, the combined wills of mother and son would force her inevitably to regulate her life on the lines which habit and tradition inclined them naturally to follow. She did not aspire to excel as a housewife; nor did she wish to avoid late hours and unwholesome excitement, and develop a horror of draughts and a cautious regard for her digestion. Mr Morgan was obliged to live simply. His diet consisted mainly, it seemed to Prudence, of boiled mutton and milk puddings. Mrs Morgan had impressed these important details on her in the drawing-room while she drank her tea. Any departure from this rigorous self-denial was followed by tribulation. And invariably he drank a glass of hot water the last thing before retiring.
Old Mrs Morgan partook of hot water also. She proposed that Prudence should adopt this excellent custom.
“It is so good for every one,” she had explained to Prudence’s immense embarrassment. “It flushes the kidneys.”
Recalling this amazing statement in the solitude of her room, Prudence was moved to quiet mirth.