In the meantime, there had been many changes in Mr.Howland's family.

Mary had married against her father's wishes, and both herself and husband had been so unkindly treated by him on the occasion and afterward, that neither of them visited at his house.
Henry Markland, the husband of Mary, had been rather a gay young man, and this, with some other things which had come to his ears, created a prejudice in the mind of Mr.Howland against him.

As to what was good in Markland, and likely to overbalance defects, he did not inquire.

The hue of his prejudice colored everything.

Men like Mr.Howland, who seek to bend everything into forms suited to their own narrow range of ideas, are rarely successful in attaining their ends.