Mrs.Barnard herself had spelt out her husband like a hard and seemingly cruel text in the Bible.

She marvelled at its darkness in her light, but she believed in it reverently, and even pugnaciously.
The large, loosely built woman, with her heavy, sliding step, waxed fairly decisive, and her soft, meek-lidded eyes gleamed hard and prominent when her elder sister, Hannah, dared inveigh against Cephas.
"I tell you it is his way," said Sarah Barnard.

And she said it as if "his way" was the way of the King.
"His way!" Hannah would sniff back.

"His way! Keepin' you all on rye meal one spell, an' not lettin' you eat a mite of Injun, an' then keepin' you on Injun without a mite of rye! Makin' you eat nothin' but greens an' garden stuff, an' jest turnin' you out to graze an' chew your cuds like horned animals one spell, an' then makin' you live on meat! Lettin' you go abroad when he takes a notion, an' then keepin' you an' Charlotte in the house a year!" "It's his way, an' I ain't goin' to have anything said against it," Sarah Barnard would retort stanchly, and her sister would sniff back again.

Charlotte was as loyal as her mother; she did not like it if even her lover intimated anything in disfavor of her father.
No matter how miserable she was in consequence of her acquiescence with her father's will, she sternly persisted.
To-night she knew that Barnabas was waiting impatiently for her signal to leave the rest of the company and go with her into the front room; there was also a tender involuntary impatience and longing in every nerve of her body, but nobody would have suspected it; she sat there as calmly as if Barnabas were old Squire Payne, who sometimes came in of a Sabbath evening, and seemed to be listening intently to her mother and her Aunt Sylvia talking about the spring cleaning.
Cephas and Barnabas were grimly silent.