She had not been brought up to be a farmer's wife: she was but a child
still, as the old parson had said. She should not have to work as other
men's wives worked: she should dress like a lady, and on Sundays, in
church, wear fine bonnets, and remain, as she had always been, the belle
of all the parish.
And, meanwhile, he would farm as he had never farmed before,
watching his opportunities, driving cunning bargains, spending
nothing on himself, hoarding every penny that she might have what
she wanted.... And, as he strode through the village, he seemed to
foresee a general brightening of prospects, a sobering of the fever
of speculation in sheep, a cessation of the insensate glutting, year
after year, of the great winter marts throughout the North, a slackening
of the foreign competition followed by a steady revival of the price
of fatted stocks--a period of prosperity in store for the farmer at
last.... And the future years appeared to open out before him, spread
like a distant, glittering plain, across which, he and she, hand in
hand, were called to travel together....
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