ch a conviction is to a man enough to outweigh
infinitely any loss that even his unworthiness can have caused him;
for it involves some perception of the worthiness of the truth, and
makes way for the utter consolation which the birth of that truth in
himself will bring. As yet Mr. Galbraith was but overwhelmed with
care for a self which, so far as he had to do with the making of it,
was of small value indeed, although in the possibility, which is the
birthright of every creature, it was, not less than that of the
wretchedest of dog-licked Lazaruses, of a value by himself
unsuspected and inappreciable. That he should behave so cruelly to
his one child, was not unnatural to that self with which he was so
much occupied: failure had weakened that command of behaviour which
so frequently gains the credit belonging only to justice and
kindness, and a temper which never was good, but always feeling the
chain, was ready at once to show its ugly teeth. He was a proud
man, whose pride was always catching cold from his heart. He might
have lived a hundred years in the same house with a child that was
not his own, without feeling for her a single movement of affection.

The servants found more change in him than Ginevra did; his
relations with them, if not better conceived than his paternal ones,
had been less evidently defective. Now he found fault with every
one, so that even Joseph dared hardly open his mouth, and said he
must give warning. The day after his arrival, having spent the
morning with Angus walking over certain fields, much desired, he
knew, of a neighbouring proprietor, inwardly calculating the utmost
he could venture to ask for them with a chance of selling, he
scolded Ginevra severely on his return because she had not had
lunch, but had waited for him; whereas a little reflection might
have shown him she dared not take it without him. Naturally,
therefore, she could not now eat, because of a certain sensation in
her throat. The instant he saw she was not eating, he ordered her
out of the room: he would have no such airs in his family! By the
end of the week--he arrived on the Tuesday--such a sense of
estrangement possessed Ginevra, that she would turn on the stair and
run up again, if she heard her father's voice below. Her aversion
to meeting him, he became aware of, and felt relieved in regard to
the wrong he was doing his wife, by reflecting upon her daughter's
behaviour towards him; for he had a