In reality she ruled the house, and the Judge and Carlin, and the babies and the Swedish servant, with an iron hand. An exact order prevailed in the household, a definite routine for each day. Mary had her ideas about how a family should be managed, and she worked hard to carry them out, and made other people work too. She had a manner now of quiet authority. She did not scold, nor raise her voice when displeased; but visited the transgressor with an awful silence and with icy glances. Outside the house she seldom interfered with the doings of her husband or Judge Baxter. "Business" was the man's province, and she did not enquire, as a rule, into its details. And in her own province she did not expect to be interfered with.
The Judge and Carlin submitted meekly to her rules--refrained from smoking in certain rooms, were prompt at meals, careful about the sort of men they brought to the house, did not indulge in unseemly levity of conversation. The Judge had almost conquered a lifelong habit of profanity. He had a complete fealty to Mary, was touchingly pleased to be ruled by her. He was afraid of her, and often felt like a small boy in her presence. He despised her intellect, as he did that of all women. This contempt existed side by side in his mind with admiration and involuntary awe, and the conjunction never troubled him. He would have said that he admired women but didn't respect them. More difficult to overcome than swearing was his habit of cynical speech about the sex. It broke out now and then in Mary's presence, revealing his deep conviction that women (though angelic no doubt) were hardly human, but of a distinctly inferior species. Mary never troubled to defend her sex. She would merely look at the Judge with a calm, slightly ironical gaze, under which he sometimes blushed.
The next afternoon she went to visit Hilary, who was ill, Mrs. Lowell reported. There was no hesitation now about her entrance. She walked into the house, majestic in her sweeping grey dress, and the widow received her gladly. Confidential relations had long since been established between them on the subject of the minister.
"He's up and dressed, though the doctor ordered him to stay in bed," the widow complained in a subdued voice. "And he won't take his chicken broth, that I made specially--"