n, and he could hardly bend his spirit to know
that never again should he be able to feel that he had never been
beholden for money to a living creature. And while he felt it due to
his sister to own the full extent of the benefit, he weighed his words
as he wrote on, lest the simplest facts should look like a craving for
further assistance.

Charlotte came up to remove the breakfast, and he looked up to give an
order for some nourishing dainty for her mistress, adding, 'What did
that mutton come to? No, I am not displeased with you, but Miss Clara
has sent me some money.'

His assurance was needed, for Charlotte went down thinking she had
never seen master look so stern. He had spoken from a sense that the
truth was due to the generous girl, but each word had been intense
pain. He wrote on, often interrupted by little riots among the
children, and finally by a sharp contention, the twins having possessed
themselves of a paper-knife, which Kitty, with precocious notions of
discipline, considered as forbidden; and little Mercy was rapped over
the fingers in the struggle. The roar brought down interference, and
Kitty fell into disgrace; but when, after long persuasion, she was
induced to yield the paper-cutter, kiss and make friends, Mercy,
instead of embracing, locked her fingers into her dark curls, and
tugged at them in a way so opposite to her name, that all Kitty's
offence was forgotten in her merit for stopping her scream half-way at
the sight of her father's uplifted finger, and his whisper of 'Poor
mamma!'

That life of worry and baby squabbles, the reflection of his own
faults, was hard to bear; and with a feeling of seeking a refuge, when
the two little ones had fallen into their noonday sleep, and were left
with their mother to the care of good Miss Mercy, he set out for some
parish work at Ormersfield, still taking with him little Kitty, whose
quicksilver nature would never relieve her elders by a siesta.

He was afraid to speak to Isabel until he should have composed himself,
and, harassed and weary in spirits and in frame, he walked slowly, very
sore at the domestic discovery, and scarcely feeling the diminution of
the immediate pressure in the new sense of degradation. He could own
that it was merited, and was arguing with himself that patience and
gratitude were the needful proofs that the evil temper had been
expelled. He called back his thankfulness for his wife's safety, his
children's health