white and solemn as she entered the dining-room.

Mr. Greatorex was a merchant in the City. But he was more of a man
than a merchant, which all merchants are not. Also, he was more
scrupulous in his dealings than some merchants in the same line of
business, who yet stood as well with the world as he; but, on the
other hand, he had the meanness to pride himself upon it as if it had
been something he might have done without and yet held up his head.

Some six years before, he had married to please his parents; and a
year before, he had married to please himself. His first wife had
intellect, education, and heart, but little individuality--not enough
to reflect the individuality of her husband. The consequence was, he
found her uninteresting. He was kind and indulgent however, and not
even her best friend blamed him much for manifesting nothing beyond
the average devotion of husbands. But in truth his wife had great
capabilities, only they had never ripened, and when she died, a
fortnight after giving birth to Sophy, her husband had not a suspicion
of the large amount of undeveloped power that had passed away with
her.

Her child was so like her both in countenance and manner that he was
too constantly reminded of her unlamented mother; and he loved neither
enough to discover that, in a sense as true as marvellous, the child
was the very flower-bud of her mother's nature, in which her retarded
blossom had yet a chance of being slowly carried to perfection. Love
alone gives insight, and the father took her merely for a miniature
edition of the volume which he seemed to have laid aside for ever in
the dust of the earth's lumber-room. Instead, therefore, of watering
the roots of his little human slip from the well of his affections, he