day she
found it harder and harder to return home and meet Roland's eager face
as she opened the door. Pretty soon the anxiety became tinctured with
complaint and unreasonable ill-temper, and with all the domestic
miseries which accompany resentful poverty.

The poor little baby in Roland's opinion was to blame for every
disappointment. Its arrival had belated Denasia's application, or if
he wanted to be particularly irritating, he accused Denasia of being
in such a hurry to return to her child that she did not attend to her
most necessary duties. So instead of being a loving tie between them,
the poor wailing little morsel of humanity separated very love, while
Roland's complaints of it soon really produced in his heart the
impatient dislike which at first he only pretended.

He grumbled when left in charge of the cradle. As soon as Denasia was
out of sight he frequently deserted his duty, and the disputes that
followed hardened his heart continually against the cause of them. And
when it came to naming the child, he averred that it was a matter of
no importance to him, only he would not have it called Roland. "There
had been," he said, "one too many of the Treshams called Roland. The
name was unlucky; and besides, the child did not resemble his family.
It looked just like the St. Penfer fisher children."

Denasia coloured furiously, but she answered with the moderation of
accepted punishment, "Very well, then! I will call him 'John' after my
father. I hope he may be as good a man."

Matters went on in this unhappy fashion until the end of October--nay,
they continually grew worse, for poverty deepened and hope lessened.
Denasia had lost the freshness of her beauty, and she was too simple
and ignorant to make art replace nature. Indeed, it is doubtful
whether any persuasion could have made her imitate the "painted
Jezebel" who had always been one of the most pointed examples of her
religious education. In her first experience of public life her
radiant health and colouring shamed all meaner aids and had been amply
sufficient for the brightest lights and the longest hours. But that
fierce ordeal of acclimating under conditions of constant travel and
hard work had drained even the magnificent vitality that had been her
heritage from generations of seamen, and typhoid and unhappy maternity
had robbed her of much of her almost defiant youth, with its
indomitable spirit and invincible hope.

She had become by the clo