husband gave her no pain; and when he scolded or abused her, she was highly diverted.

“Mr. Palmer is so droll!” said she, in a whisper, to Elinor. “He is always out of humour.”

Elinor was not inclined, after a little observation, to give him credit for being so genuinely and unaffectedly ill-natured or ill-bred as he wished to appear.

His temper might perhaps be a little soured by finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman, — but she knew that this kind of blunder was too common for any sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it. — It was rather a wish of distinction, she believed, which produced his contemptuous treatment of