life had its drawbacks. With the healthy shame of a child, she
blamed herself for her keenness of sight, in perceiving that all
was not as it should be there. Her mother--her mother always so
kind and tender towards her--seemed now and then so much
discontented with their situation; thought that the bishop
strangely neglected his episcopal duties, in not giving Mr. Hale
a better living; and almost reproached her husband because he
could not bring himself to say that he wished to leave the
parish, and undertake the charge of a larger. He would sigh aloud
as he answered, that if he could do what he ought in little
Helstone, he should be thankful; but every day he was more
overpowered; the world became more bewildering. At each repeated
urgency of his wife, that he would put himself in the way of
seeking some preferment, Margaret saw that her father shrank more
and more; and she strove at such times to reconcile her mother to
Helstone. Mrs. Hale said that the near neighbourhood of so many
trees affected her health; and Margaret would try to tempt her
forth on to the beautiful, broad, upland, sun-streaked,
cloud-shadowed common; for she was sure that her mother had
accustomed herself too much to an in-doors life, seldom extending
her walks beyond the church, the school, and the neighbouring
cottages. This did good for a time; but when the autumn drew on,
and the weather became more changeable, her mother's idea of the
unhealthiness of the place increased; and she repined even more
frequently that her husband, who was more learned than Mr. Hume,
a better parish priest than Mr. Houldsworth, should not have met
with the preferment that these two former neighbours of theirs
had done.

This marring of the peace of home, by long hours of discontent,