positively punished in anyway; but, when we came in contact with him,
we were treated with a cold, contemptuous politeness (especially if our
fault showed a tendency to anything mean or ungentlemanlike) which
cut us to the heart. On these occasions, we were not addressed by our
Christian names; if we accidentally met him out of doors, he was sure to
turn aside and avoid us; if we asked a question, it was answered in the
briefest possible manner, as if we had been strangers. His whole
course of conduct said, as though in so many words--You have rendered
yourselves unfit to associate with your father; and he is now making you
feel that unfitness as deeply as he does. We were left in this domestic
purgatory for days, sometimes for weeks together. To our boyish feelings
(to mine especially) there was no ignominy like it, while it lasted.

I know not on what terms my father lived with my mother. Towards my
sister, his demeanour always exhibited something of the old-fashioned,
affectionate gallantry of a former age. He paid her the same attention
that he would have paid to the highest lady in the land. He led her
into the dining-room, when we were alone, exactly as he would have led a
duchess into a banqueting-hall. He would allow us, as boys, to quit the
breakfast-table before he had risen himself; but never before she had
left it. If a servant failed in duty towards _him,_ the servant was
often forgiven; if towards _her,_ the servant was sent away on the
spot. His daughter was in his eyes the representative of her mother: the
mistress of his house, as well as his child. It was curious to see the
mixture of high-bred courtesy and fatherly love in his manner, as he
just gently touched her forehead with his lips, when he first saw her in
the morning.

In person, my father was of not more than middle height. He was very
slenderly and delicately made; his head small, and well set on his
shoulders--his forehead more broad than lofty--his complexion singularly
pale, except in moments of agitation, when I have already noticed its
tendency to flush all over in an instant. His eyes, large and gray,
had something commanding in their look; they gave a certain unchanging
firmness and dignity to his expression, not often met with. They
betrayed his birth and breeding, his old ancestral prejudices, his
chivalrous sense of honour, in every glance. It required, indeed, all
the masculine energy of look about the upper part of his face, to r