His marriage had been of a kind that occasioned general surprise, and, in certain circles, indignation.  There had come to live, in one of the smaller houses upon the Heath, a family consisting of a middle-aged lady and her two daughters; their name was Hanmer, and their previous home had been in Hebsworth, the large manufacturing town which is a sort of metropolis to Dunfield and other smaller centres round about.  Mr. Hanmer was recently dead; he had been a banker, but suffered grave losses in a period of commercial depression, and left his family poorly off.  Various reasons led to his widow’s quitting Hebsworth; Dunfield inquirers naturally got hold of stories more or less to the disgrace of the deceased Mr. Hanmer.  The elder of the two daughters Richard Dagworthy married, after an acquaintance of something less than six months.  Dunfield threw up its hands in amazement:  such a proceeding on young Dagworthy’s part was not only shabby to the families which had upon him the claim of old-standing expectancy, but was in itself inexplicable.  Miss Hanmer might be good-looking, but Richard (always called ‘young’ to distinguish him from his father) had surely outgrown such a very infantile reason of choice, when other attractions were, to the Dunfield mind, altogether wanting.  The Hanmers were not only poor, but, more shameful still, positively ‘stuck up’ in their poverty.  They came originally from the south of England, forsooth, and spoke in an affected way, pronouncing their vowels absurdly.  Well, the consoling reflection was that his wife would soon make him see that she despised him, for if ever there was a thorough Yorkshireman, it was Richard.

Dunfield comments on Mrs. Dagworthy seemed to find some justification in the turn things took.  Richard distinctly began to neglect those of his old friends who smacked most of the soil; if they visited his house, his wife received them with an affected graciousness which was so unmistakably ‘stuck up’ that they were in no hurry to come again, and her behaviour, when she returned visits, was felt to be so offensive that worthy ladies—­already prejudiced—­had a difficulty in refraining from a kind of frankness which would have brought about a crisis.  The town was perpetually busy with gossip concerning the uncomfortableness of things in the house on the Heath.  Old Mr. Dagworthy, it was declared, had roundly bidden his son seek a domicile elsewhere, since joint occupancy of the home had become impossible.  Whether such a change was in reality contemplated could never be determined; the old man’s death removed the occasion.  Mrs. Dagworthy survived him little more than half a year.  So there, said Dunfield, was a mistake well done with; and it was disposed to let bygones be bygones.