Margaret

Along with her sister-in-law, Mary, Margaret is one of the wives referred to in the title. Both are "recent brides," and still "young and comely"; that is, attractive. She has a "lively and irritable temperament," and is bitter, virtually inconsolable, about her husband's death. She declines eating the meal Mary offers her, saying, in reference to God, "Would it were His will that I might never taste food more." She cannot sleep and stays up listening to the rain, looking at the hearth and the furniture in the living room the two couples shared, grieving her loss. When she hears a knock on the door, she answers it with apprehension, saying to herself, "I have nothing left to fear, and methinks I am ten times more a coward than ever." Agitated, she screams at Goodman Parker, asking him what he wants. When Parker tells her that her husband...