Though even daughters can never rest till they've got married, more's the pity.

If they knowed as much about men as I do, they'd be thanking the Lord that He'd created them single, instead of forever fidgeting to change the state to which they were born." "Well, I holds with folks getting married," argued Mrs.Bateson; "it gives 'em something to think about between Sunday's sermon and Thursday's baking; and if folks have nothing to think about, they think about mischief." "That's true, especially if they happen to be men." "Why do men think about mischief more than women do ?" asked Elisabeth, who always felt hankerings after the why and wherefore of things.
"Because, my dear, the Lord made 'em so, and it is not for us to complain," replied Mrs.Hankey, in a tone which implied that, had the role of Creator been allotted to her, the idiosyncrasies of the male sex would have been much less marked than they are at present.

"They've no sense, men haven't; that's what is the matter with them." "You never spoke a truer word, Mrs.Hankey," agreed her hostess; "the very best of them don't properly know the difference between their souls and their stomachs; and they fancy that they are a-wrestling with their doubts, when really it is their dinners that are a-wrestling with them.
Now take Bateson hisself, and a kinder husband or a better Methodist never drew breath; yet so sure as he touches a bit of pork, he begins to worn hisself about the doctrine of Election till there's no living with him." "That's a man all over, to the very life," said Mrs.Hankey sympathetically; "and he never has the sense to see what's wrong with him, I'll be bound." "Not he--he wouldn't be a man if he had.

And then he'll sit in the front parlour and engage in prayer for hours at a time, till I says to him, 'Bateson,' says I, 'I'd be ashamed to go troubling the Lord with a prayer when a pinch o' carbonate o' soda would set things straight again.'" "And quite right, Mrs.Bateson; it's often a wonder to me that the Lord has patience with men, seeing that their own wives haven't." "And to me, too.

Now Bateson has been going on like this for thirty years or more; yet if there's roast pork on the table, and I say a word to put him off it, he's that hurt as never was.