He had argued that such correspondence was disturbing to her mind, and to the domestic duties which should be every decent woman's religion.

One of the occasions of his beating her had been in consequence of his finding her writing to her mother a letter blotted with tears.

Husbands frequently objected to their wives' relatives, but there was a special order of European husband who opposed violently any intimacy with American relations on the practical ground that their views of a wife's position, with regard to her husband, were of a revolutionary nature.
Mrs.Vanderpoel had in her possession every letter Rosalie or her husband had ever written.

Bettina asked to be allowed to read them, and one morning seated herself in her own room before a blazing fire, with the collection on a table at her side.

She read them in order.