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.
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