"I went to her, and though I could not persuade her, that the
quarrel between me and Mr. Venables would never be made up, still
she agreed to conceal me for the present; yet assuring me at the
same time, shaking her head, that, when a woman was once married,
she must bear every thing. Her pale face, on which appeared a
thousand haggard lines and delving wrinkles, produced by what is
emphatically termed fretting, inforced her remark; and I had
afterwards an opportunity of observing the treatment she had to
endure, which grizzled her into patience. She toiled from morning
till night; yet her husband would rob the till, and take away the
money reserved for paying bills; and, returning home drunk, he
would beat her if she chanced to offend him, though she had a child
at the breast.
"These scenes awoke me at night; and, in the morning,
I heard her, as usual, talk to her dear Johnny--he, forsooth,
was her master; no slave in the West Indies had one more despotic;
but fortunately she was of the true Russian breed of wives.
"My mind, during the few past days, seemed, as it were,
disengaged from my body; but, now the struggle was over, I felt
very forcibly the effect which perturbation of spirits produces
on a woman in my situation.
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