He had experienced the effects
of change of station, as well as of exertion, drudgery, and of the
home hardship that no one except Mr. Audley had tried to sweeten. He
saw how Edgar had acquired the nameless air and style that he was
losing, how even Clement viewed him as left behind; and, on the other
hand, he knew that with his own trained and tested ability and
application, and his kinsman's patronage, there was every reasonable
chance of his regaining a gentleman's position, away from that half-
jealous, half-conceited foreman, who made every day a trial to him,
and looked at him with an evil eye as a supplanter in the post of
confidence. But therewith he thought of his father's words, that to
him he left this heavy burthen, and he thought what it would be to
have no central home, no place of holiday-meeting, no rallying-point
for the boys and girls, and to cast off the little ones to hired
service, this alternative never seriously occurred to him, for were
they not all bound to him by the cords of love, and most closely the
weakest and most helpless? Yet his first reply did not convey the
weight of his determination. It was only 'Geraldine is too delicate.
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