There was another personage in the house, however, to whom Dolph was
obliged to pay allegiance. Though a bachelor, and a man of such great
dignity and importance, yet the doctor was, like many other wise men,
subject to petticoat government. He was completely under the sway of
his housekeeper; a spare, busy, fretting housewife, in a little,
round, quilted, German cap, with a huge bunch of keys jingling at the
girdle of an exceedingly long waist. Frau Ilse (or Frow Ilsy, as it
was pronounced) had accompanied him in his various migrations from
Germany to England, and from England to the province; managing his
establishment and himself too: ruling him, it is true, with a gentle
hand, but carrying a high hand with all the world beside. How she had
acquired such ascendency, I do not pretend to say. People, it is true,
did talk--but have not people been prone to talk ever since the world
began? Who can tell how women generally contrive to get the upper
hand? A husband, it is true, may now and then be master in his own
house; but who ever knew a bachelor that was not managed by his
housekeeper?
Indeed, Frau Ilsy's power was not confined to the doctor's household.
She was one of those prying gossips that know every one's business
better than they do themselves; and whose all-seeing eyes, and
all-telling tongues, are terrors throughout a neighbourhood.
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