were
brushed sideways above a white and sufficiently expansive forehead; his
cheek had a rather hectic freshness; his features might have done well
on canvas, but indifferently in marble: they were plastic; character
had set a stamp upon each; expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and
strange metamorphoses she wrought, giving him now the mien of a morose
bull, and anon that of an arch and mischievous girl; more frequently,
the two semblances were blent, and a queer, composite countenance they
made.

Starting from his silent fit, he began:--

"William! what a fool you are to live in those dismal lodgings of Mrs.
King's, when you might take rooms here in Grove Street, and have a
garden like me!"

"I should be too far from the mill."

"What of that? It would do you good to walk there and back two or three
times a day; besides, are you such a fossil that you never wish to see a
flower or a green leaf?"

"I am no fossil."

"What are you then? You sit at that desk in Crimsworth's counting-house
day by day and week by week, scraping with a pen on paper, just like an
automaton; you never get up; you never say you are tired; you never ask
for a holiday; you never take change or relaxation; you give way to
no excess of an evening; you neither keep wild company, nor indulge in
strong drink."

"Do you, Mr. Hunsden?"

"Don't think to pose me with short questions; your case and mine
are diametrically different, and it is nonsense attempting to draw a
parallel. I say, that when a man endures patiently what ought to be
unendurable, he is a fossil."

"Whence do you acquire the knowledge of my patience?"

"Why, man, do you suppose you are a mystery? The other night you seemed
surprised at my knowing to what family you belonged; now you find
subject for wonderment in my calling you patient. What do you think I do
with my eyes and ears? I've been in your counting-house more than once
when Crimsworth has treated you like a dog; called for a book, for
instance, and when you gave him the wrong one, or what he chose to
consider the wrong one, flung it back almost in your face; desired you
to shut or open the door as if you had been his flunkey; to say nothing
of your position at the party about a month ago, where you had neither
place nor partner, but hovered about like a poor, shabby hanger-on; and
how patient you were under each and all of these circumstances!"

"Well, Mr. Hunsden, what then?"

"I can hardly tell you what