' They referred to
each other as oracular sources of wisdom and good taste.
Respectability stalked abroad when they were afoot. The whole
Square wriggled uneasily as though God's eye were peculiarly upon
it. The meals in the parlour became solemn collations, at which
shone the best silver and the finest diaper, but from which gaiety
and naturalness seemed to be banished. (I say 'seemed' because it
cannot be doubted that Aunt Harriet was natural, and there were
moments when she possibly considered herself to be practising
gaiety--a gaiety more desolating than her severity.) The younger
generation was extinguished, pressed flat and lifeless under the
ponderosity of the widows.
Mr. Povey was not the man to be easily flattened by ponderosity of
any kind, and his suppression was a striking proof of the prowess
of the widows; who, indeed, went over Mr. Povey like traction-
engines, with the sublime unconsciousness of traction-engines,
leaving an inanimate object in the road behind them, and scarce
aware even of the jolt. Mr. Povey hated Aunt Harriet, but, lying
crushed there in the road, how could he rebel? He felt all the
time that Aunt Harriet was adding him up, and reporting the result
at frequent intervals to Mrs.
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