iet and not noticeable. But his sister
adored him. He always seemed to care for things if she wanted him to.

She had a big doll of which she was fearfully proud, though not so fond.
So she laid the doll on the sofa, and covered it with an antimacassar,
to sleep. Then she forgot it. Meantime Paul must practise jumping off
the sofa arm. So he jumped crash into the face of the hidden doll.
Annie rushed up, uttered a loud wail, and sat down to weep a dirge. Paul
remained quite still.

"You couldn't tell it was there, mother; you couldn't tell it was
there," he repeated over and over. So long as Annie wept for the doll
he sat helpless with misery. Her grief wore itself out. She forgave
her brother--he was so much upset. But a day or two afterwards she was
shocked.

"Let's make a sacrifice of Arabella," he said. "Let's burn her."

She was horrified, yet rather fascinated. She wanted to see what the boy
would do. He made an altar of bricks, pulled some of the shavings out of
Arabella's body, put the waxen fragments into the hollow face, poured
on a little paraffin, and set the whole thing alight. He watched with
wicked satisfaction the drops of wax melt off the broken forehead of
Arabella, and drop like sweat into the flame. So long as the stupid big
doll burned he rejoiced in silence. At the end be poked among the embers
with a stick, fished out the arms and legs, all blackened, and smashed
them under stones.

"That's the sacrifice of Missis Arabella," he said. "An' I'm glad
there's nothing left of her."

Which disturbed Annie inwardly, although she could say nothing. He
seemed to hate the doll so intensely, because he had broken it.

All the children, but particularly Paul, were peculiarly against their
father, along with their mother. Morel continued to bully and to drink.
He had periods, months at a time, when he made the whole life of the
family a misery. Paul never forgot coming home from the Band of Hope
one Monday evening and finding his mother with her eye swollen and
discoloured, his father standing on the hearthrug, feet astride, his
head down, and William, just home from work, glaring at his father.
There was a silence as the young children entered, but none of the
elders looked round.

William was white to the lips, and his fists were clenched. He waited
until the children were silent, watching with children's rage and hate;
then he said:

"You coward, you daren't do it when I was in."

But Morel's b