progress in it, and might come to the dogs--could not from the
nature of things be wrapped up in silence in order that it might not
hurt their feelings; and as a matter of fact, it greeted their ears
in some form or other wherever they went. Their few acquaintances
passed them hurriedly. Ancient pot-wallopers, and thriving
shopkeepers, in their intervals of leisure, stood at their
shop-doors--their toes hanging over the edge of the step, and their
obese waists hanging over their toes--and in discourses with friends
on the pavement, formulated the course of the improvident, and
reduced the children's prospects to a shadow-like attenuation. The
sons of these men (who wore breastpins of a sarcastic kind, and
smoked humorous pipes) stared at Cytherea with a stare unmitigated
by any of the respect that had formerly softened it.

Now it is a noticeable fact that we do not much mind what men think
of us, or what humiliating secret they discover of our means,
parentage, or object, provided that each thinks and acts thereupon
in isolation. It is the exchange of ideas about us that we dread
most; and the possession by a hundred acquaintances, severally
insulated, of the knowledge of our skeleton-closet's whereabouts, is
not so distressing to the nerves as a chat over it by a party of
half-a-dozen--exclusive depositaries though these may be.

Perhaps, though Hocbridge watched and whispered, its animus would
have been little more than a trifle to persons in thriving
circumstances. But unfortunately, poverty, whilst it is new, and
before the skin has had time to thicken, makes people susceptible
inversely to their opportunities for shielding themselves. In Owen
was found, in place of his father's impressibility, a larger share
of his father's pride, and a squareness of idea which, if coupled