BOOK IV.


CHAPTER I.

In the kindliest natures there is a certain sensitiveness, which,
when wounded, occasions the same pain, and bequeaths the same
resentment, as mortified vanity or galled self-love.

It is exactly that day week, towards the hour of five in the evening, Mr.
Hartopp, alone in the parlour behind his warehouse, is locking up his
books and ledgers preparatory to the return to his villa. There is a
certain change in the expression of his countenance since we saw it last.
If it be possible for Mr. Hartopp to look sullen,--sullen he looks; if it
be possible for the Mayor of Gatesboro' to be crestfallen, crestfallen he
is. That smooth existence has surely received some fatal concussion, and
has not yet recovered the shock. But if you will glance beyond the
parlour at Mr. Williams giving orders in the warehouse, at the
warehousemen themselves, at the rough faces in the tan-yard,-nay, at Mike
Callaghan, who has just brought a parcel from the railway, all of them
have evidently shared in the effects of the concussion; all of them wear
a look more or less sullen; all seem crestfallen. Could you carry
your gaze farther on, could you peep into the shops in the High Street,
or at the loungers in the city reading-room; could you extend the vision
farther still,--to Mr. Hartopp's villa, behold his wife, his little ones,
his men-servants, and his maid-servants, more and more impressively
general would become the tokens of disturbance occasioned by that
infamous concussion. Everywhere a sullen look,--everywhere that
ineffable aspect of crestfallenness! What can have happened? is the
good man bankrupt? No, rich as ever! What can it be? Reader! that