dmiring interest; also, by entering upon a conversation which was
meant to prove that he did not altogether lack worldly knowledge, of
however little moment that might be in comparison with spiritual
concerns. Examining, volume by volume and with painful minuteness, the
prizes Godwin had carried off, he remarked fervently, in each instance,
'I can see how very interesting that is! So thorough, so thorough!'
Even Charlotte was at length annoyed, when Mr. Cusse had exclaimed upon
the 'thoroughness' of Ben Jonson's works; she asked an abrupt question
about some town affair, and so gave her brother an opportunity of
taking the books away. There was no flagrant offence in the man. He
spoke with passable accent, and manifested a high degree of amiability;
but one could not dissociate him from the counter. At the thought that
his sister might become Mrs. Cusse, Godwin ground his teeth. Now that
he came to reflect on the subject, he found in himself a sort of
unreasoned supposition that Charlotte would always remain single; it
seemed so unlikely that she would be sought by a man of liberal
standing, and at the same time so impossible for her to accept any one
less than a gentleman. Yet he remembered that to outsiders such
fastidiousness must show in a ridiculous light. What claim to gentility
had they, the Peaks? Was it not all a figment of his own self-conceit?
Even in education Charlotte could barely assert a superiority to Mr.
Cusse, for her formal schooling had ended when she was twelve, and she
had never cared to read beyond the strait track clerical inspiration.

There were other circumstances which helped to depress his estimate of
the family dignity. His brother Oliver, now seventeen, was developing
into a type of young man as objectionable as it is easily recognised.
The slow, compliant boy had grown more flesh and muscle than once
seemed likely, and his wits had begun to display that kind of
vivaciousness which is only compatible with a nature moulded in common
clay. He saw much company, and all of low intellectual order; he had
purchased a bicycle, and regarded it as a source of distinction, a
means of displaying himself before shopkeepers' daughters; he believed
himself a modest tenor, and sang verses of sentimental imbecility; he
took in several weekly papers of unpromising title, for the chief
purpose of deciphering cryptograms, in which pursuit he had singular
success. Add to these characteristics a penchant for c