 very high, and no one was surprised the two
eldest had married so well - not at an early age, for that was not the practice
of the Dodson family. There were particular ways of doing everything in that
family: particular ways of bleaching the linen, of making the cowslip wine,
curing the hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries; so that no daughter of
that house could be indifferent to the privilege of having been born a Dodson,
rather than a Gibson or a Watson. Funerals were always conducted with peculiar
propriety in the Dodson family: the hatbands were never of a blue shade, the
gloves never split at the thumb, everybody was a mourner who ought to be, and
there were always scarfs for the bearers. When one of the family was in trouble
or sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunate member, usually at the
same time, and did not shrink from uttering the most disagreeable truths that
correct family feeling dictated: if the illness or trouble was the sufferer's
own fault, it was not in the practice of the Dodson family to shrink from saying
so. In short, there was in this family a peculiar tradition as to what was the
right thing in household management and social demeanour, and the only bitter
circumstance attending this superiority was a painful inability to approve the
condiments or the conduct of families ungoverned by the Dodson tradition. A
female Dodson, when in »strange houses,« always ate dry bread with her tea, and
declined any sort of preserves, having no confidence in the butter, and thinking
that the preserves had probably begun to ferment from want of due sugar and
boiling. There were some Dodsons less like the family than others - that was
admitted; but in so far as they were »kin,« they were of necessity better than
those who were »no kin.« And it is remarkable that while no individual Dodson
was satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each was satisfied, not only
with him or her self, but with the Dodsons collectively. The feeblest member of
a family - the one who has the least character - is often the merest epitome of
the family habits and traditions; and Mrs. Tulliver was a thorough Dodson,
though a mild one, as small-beer, so long as it is anything, is only describable
as very weak ale: and though she had groaned a little in her youth under the
yoke of her elder sisters, and still shed occasional tears at their sisterly
reproaches, it was not in Mrs. Tulliver to be an innovator on the family ideas.
She was thankful
