For it was his
silently-appointed work to listen for her knock, and rush
breathless to let her in. If he were in the garden, or upstairs
among the treasures of the lumber-room, either Miss Benson, or
her brother, or Sally would fetch him to his happy little task;
no one so sacred as he to the allotted duty. And the joyous
meeting was not deadened by custom, to either mother or child.
Ruth gave the Bradshaws the highest satisfaction, as Mr. Bradshaw
often said both to her and to the Bensons; indeed, she rather
winced under his pompous approbation. But his favourite
recreation was patronising; and when Ruth saw how quietly and
meekly Mr. Benson submitted to gifts and praise, when an honest
word of affection, or a tacit, implied acknowledgment of
equality, would have been worth everything said and done, she
tried to be more meek in spirit, and to recognise the good that
undoubtedly existed in Mr. Bradshaw. He was richer and more
prosperous than ever;--a keen, far-seeing man of business, with
an undisguised contempt for all who failed in the success which
he had achieved. But it was not alone those who were less
fortunate in obtaining wealth than himself that he visited with
severity of judgment; every moral error or delinquency came under
his unsparing comment. Stained by no vice himself, either in his
own eyes or in that of any human being who cared to judge him,
having nicely and wisely proportioned and adapted his means to
his ends, he could afford to speak and act with a severity which
was almost sanctimonious in its ostentation of thankfulness as to
himself.
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