But Hiram liked her, was amused by her always interesting and at times witty thrusts at the various members of her family, including herself.

So, Mrs.Ranger, clutching at anything that might lighten the gloom thick and black upon him, let her in and left them alone together.

With so much to do, she took advantage of every moment which she could conscientiously spend out of his presence.
At sight of Henrietta, Hiram's face brightened; and well it might.

In old-fashioned Saint X it was the custom for a married woman to "settle down" as soon as she returned from her honeymoon--to abandon all thoughts, pretensions, efforts toward an attractive exterior, and to become a "settled" woman, "settled" meaning purified of the last grain of the vanity of trying to please the eye or ear of the male.

And conversation with any man, other than her husband--and even with him, if a woman were soundly virtuous, through and through--must be as clean shorn of allurement as a Quaker meetinghouse.