Its inhabitants intermarried without crossing from
other stocks, and men determined their choice mainly by equality of
fortune and rank. The shape of the nose and lips and colour of the eyes
may have had some influence in masculine selection, but not much: the
doctor took the lawyer's daughter, the draper took the grocer's, and the
carpenter took the blacksmith's. Husbands and wives, as a rule, lived
comfortably with one another; there was no reason why they should
quarrel. The air of the place was sleepy; the men attended to their
business, and the women were entirely apart, minding their household
affairs and taking tea with one another. In Langborough, dozing as it
had dozed since the days of Queen Anne, it was almost impossible that
any woman should differ so much from another that she could be the cause
of passionate preference.
One day in the spring of 1839 Langborough was stirred to its depths. No
such excitement had been felt in the town since the run upon the bank in
1825, when one of the partners went up to London, brought down ten
thousand pounds in gold with him by the mail, and was met at Thaxton
cross-roads by a post-chaise, which was guarded into Langborough by
three men with pistols.
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