Her teeth were
good, and she had a very pretty dimple in one of her cheeks when she
smiled, two circumstances which contributed strongly to sustain her good
humor, and an unaccountable tendency to laughter, when the poverty
of the jest was out of all proportion to the mirth that followed it.
Notwithstanding this apparently light and agreeable spirit, she was both
vulgar and arrogant, and labored under the weak and ridiculous ambition
of being considered a woman of high pretensions, who had been most
unfortunately thrown away, if not altogether lost, upon a husband whom
she considered as every way unworthy of her. Her father had risen into
the possession of some unexpected property when it was too late to
bestow upon her a suitable education, and the consequence was that, in
addition to natural vanity, on the score of beauty, she was a good
deal troubled with purse-pride, which, with a foolish susceptibility of
flattery, was a leading feature in her disposition. In addition to this,
she was an inveterate and incurable slattern, though a gay and lively
one; and we need scarcely say that whatever she did in the shape
of benevolence or charity, in most instances owed its origin to the
influences of the weaknesses she was known to possess.
Breakfast, at length, was over, and the laborers, with an odd hiccup
here and there among them, from sheer repletion, got their hats and
began to proceed towards the farm.
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