He was only twenty-five, but his will was stronger than hers,--as much stronger as his temper was better.

Persons judging hastily, by her violent assertions and vehement statements of her determination, as contrasted with Stephen's gentle, slow, almost hesitating utterance of his opinions or intentions, might have assumed that she would always conquer; but it was not so.

In all little things, Stephen was her slave, because she was a suffering invalid and his mother.

But, in all important decisions, he was the master; and she recognized it, and leaned upon it in a way which was almost ludicrous in its alternation with her petulance and perpetual dictating to him in trifles.
And so they went to live in the old Jacobs house.

They took the northern half of it, the part in which the sea captain and his wife had lived.
This half of the house was not so pleasant as the other, had less sun, and had no door upon the street; but it was smaller and better suited to their needs, and moreover, Stephen said to his mother,-- "We must live in the half we should find it hardest to rent to a desirable tenant." For the first six months after they moved in, the "wing," as Mrs.White persisted in calling it, though it was larger by two rooms than the part she occupied herself, stood empty.