“You’re an old brute! You’re always abusin’ me,” she sobbed. “As if anybody could keep fixed up and doin’ all the hard, dirty work I have to do.”
“Some folks kin. There’s Miss Heath, now; no matter what she’s doin’ she’s always neat as a pin—hair done up smooth, dress clean and fresh, if it ain’t but a cheap calico.”
“Pity you hadn’t married her!”
“Just what I think—if I could a got her. Don’t know about that, seein’ as I never asked her. I was fool enough to be took in with your black eyes and red cheeks and simperin’ ways. But I wouldn’t a been if I’d knowed what a poor fist you’d make at housekeepin’ an’ cookin’, lettin’ things run to waste, and how you’d spoil all your good looks by keepin’ yerself more’n half the time so slatternly and dirty. Neatness and cleanliness are better, to my way o’ thinkin’, than all the finery in the world.”
They were an ill-assorted couple, of uncongenial disposition and utterly dissimilar tastes and opinions, as was not surprising in view of the fact that they had been very differently brought up, and that she was the younger by some forty years.
She, a penniless, almost friendless orphan, had married for a home and with the vain expectation of being a petted darling, who would have little to do but deck herself in finery; he, to gratify a sudden foolish fancy which had speedily changed to disgust when he became acquainted with the true character of its object.
Such scenes of mutual anger and recrimination were now by no means of rare occurrence between them. He presently rose, and with a parting fling at her untidy appearance and faulty housewifery, went out to attend to his cattle.
Belinda, springing to her feet, shook her clinched fist at his back as he disappeared through the doorway, and muttering, “You old tyrant, I’ll pay you off one o’ these fine days, that I will!” began gathering up the dishes and clearing the table with angry jerks and a great deal of clatter.
She smiled a grim smile of satisfaction as, on going to the door an hour later, she saw her husband walking briskly down the road in the direction of the nearest neighbor’s.
“There, he’s off for a good long talk with Mr. Harkness, and I’ll have the house to myself for awhile,” she said, half aloud, having, from being much alone, fallen into the habit of talking audibly to herself.