Then as now many of life’s events turned on the matter of convenience. It simplified things if a man chose a wife from among those he had long known. Strengths and weaknesses of various families were known as well as their property and as carefully weighed. As a credit to his own possible future need as much as from friendly concern and generosity, neighbor helped neighbor. Rain may fall on one acre while that lying next goes parched. Families were often large, death in them more commonly expected than nowadays. If a man fancied a woman and walked or rode out to court her, it was not unusual for his brother to accompany him and court a sister of the woman. So it happened more often then than now that brothers married sisters.

Arnold and his younger brother Felix had in that way ridden from Beulah Land’ three miles into the town of Highboro to court the Singleton sisters, Deborah and Nell, and to marry them. Arnold and Deborah settled at Beulah Land. Felix read law, argued cases in court, bought town property, and became a thorough town man, settling with Nell in the house her parents had built, but adding a wing to it and an acre to its grounds to set his mark of ownership.

Felix was a gay, convivial man, needing the faces and voices of his fellow creatures more than his brother did, and he might have been entirely happy except for the fact that his wife Nell possessed little energy for life and was altogether weaker fibered than her sister Deborah.

Nell’s overriding consideration was not to be bothered. To attain and sustain this plateau of inaction was her true vocation. Everything else bent to it. Her principal tool and weapon was what she called her delicate constitution.

“I declare I have to actually think about it in order to draw the next breath. If I didn’t, I’d just go out like a candle.”

On her wedding night Felix innocently and enthusiastically set about to claim his marital rights. Nell fainted, which dispelled the physical ardor Felix felt for her. His next attempt at conjunction resulted in her throwing up her supper. After waiting a fortnight he tried again. She engaged in a fit of weeping that would have melted the lust of Tarquin, and Felix was no Tarquin.