And did you gather from your clerk that Matthew Haygarth and his wife lived happily together?
_The Rector_.

Well, yes, yes: I never heard anything to the contrary.
They were not a young couple, you know.

Rebecca Caulfield was forty years of age, and Matthew Haygarth was fifty-three when he married; so, you see, one could hardly call it a love-match.

[_Abrupt inroad of bouncing damsel, exclaiming "Pa!"_] Don't you see I'm engaged, Sophia Louisa?
Why are you not at your practice?
[_Sudden retreat of bouncing damsel, followed by the scrambling performance of scale of C major in adjoining chamber, which performance abruptly ceases after five minutes_.] You see Mrs.Haygarth was _not_ young, as I was about to observe when my daughter interrupted us; and she was perhaps a little more steadfast in her adherence to the newly arisen sect of Wesleyans than was pleasing to her husband, although he consented to become a member of that sect.

But as their married life lasted only a year, they had little time for domestic unhappiness, even supposing them not to be adapted to each other.
_Myself_.