“I asked you her name,” said Anne.
“It’s Ada Struggles. You know,” he went on hurriedly, “how much we all admire her father.”
“I know, but I don’t know Ada.”
“You will soon,” said Sam enthusiastically.
“I will that,” said Anne, and there was menace in her voice. She took her candle. “Good-night, my son,” she said, kissing him, which was not habitual.
“Is that all?” he asked. “All that you have to say?”
“I don’t know Ada yet,” she said, and so was gone to bed.
Peter and Anne went opposite ways in their search to know whether this marriage was the right thing for their children’s happiness. Peter ignored the bread and butter problem, or took it for granted: and his was the higher wisdom. He knew that Sam was not made of the stuff that starves for bread; not in his body but in his soul was Sam likely to be pinched.
Anne took the earthlier view that happiness resulted from home comforts. Ada, as she knew, was no shining beauty, and the better for that. Beauty is skin-deep. But she looked frail, only so, for the matter of that, did some of the toughest girls, and she took it that Sam had had the horse-sense to make some preliminary inquiries before he committed himself. Sam, it appeared, had not.
Was Ada strong and healthy? Was she economical? Could she cook? Was she her own dressmaker? And when she found that Sam could answer none of these questions, she said ironically: “Well, at least, you’ve eyes in your head. Is their house clean?”