fect on Harold. He was more blunt, more
gruff, less tolerant or ready to be pleased; Eustace's folly was no
longer incapable of provoking him; and even his gentleness towards Dora
and me was with a greater effort, and he was plainly in an irritable
state of suppressed suffering of mind or temper, which only the strong
force he put upon himself kept in check. My poor Harold, would he see
that there were moral achievements higher than his physical ones, and
would he learn that even his strength was not equal to them, unaided?

CHAPTER VIII.

BULLOCK'S CHASTISEMENT.

The next frosty day Dora and I set forth for a visit to the double
cottage, where, on one side, dwelt a family with a newly-arrived baby;
on the other was Dame Jennings', with the dilapidated roof and chimney.
I was glad to see Dora so happily and eagerly interested over the baby
as to be more girl-like than I had yet seen her, though, comparing her
to what she had been on her arrival, she was certainly a good deal
softened and tamed. "Domesticated" would really not have been so
inappropriate a word in her case as it is in advertisements of
companions.

We had come to the door, only divided from Mrs. Jennings's by a low
fence and a few bushes, when voices struck on our ears, and we saw
Bullock's big, sturdy, John Bull form planted in a defiant attitude in
the garden-path before the door, where the old woman stood courtesying,
and mingling entreating protestations against an additional sixpence a
week on her rent with petitions that at least the chimney might be made
sound and the roof water-tight.

There is no denying that I did stand within the doorway to listen, for
not only did I not wish to encounter Bullock, but it seemed quite
justifiable to ascertain whether the current whispers of his dealings
with the poor were true; indeed, there was no time to move before he
replied with a volley of such abuse, as I never heard before or since,
at her impudence in making such a demand.

I was so much shocked that I stood transfixed, forgetting even to draw
Dora away from the sound, while the old woman pleaded that "Mr. Herod"
had made the promise, and said nothing of increasing her rent. Probably
Bullock had been irritated by the works set on foot at Ogden's farm,
for he brought out another torrent of horrid imprecations upon "the
meddling convict fellow," the least intolerable of the names he used,
and of her for currying favour, threatening her w