a business he had vastly increased. He had not been guilty in the whole of his life of any act of meanness or of treachery where a competitor was concerned, nor of any act of harshness in the relations between himself and any of his subordinates. His expression was in one way determined, in another rather troubled and uncertain; by which I mean that there were strong lines round the mouth which displayed a habit of decision in business affairs, some power of self-control, and a well ordered life; but his lips were mobile and betrayed not a little experience of suffering, to which we must attribute certain extremes which his friends thought amiable, but which his critics (for he had no enemies) detested.
Mr. Brassington had married at thirty-one years of age a woman quiet in demeanour, and in no way remarkable for any special talent or charm. She was the daughter of a clergyman in the town. She brought him a complete happiness lasting for four years. She bore him one child, and shortly after the birth of that child, a son, she died.
Now Mr. Brassington, like most of his kind, was a man of strong and secret emotions. He loved his country, he was attached to the pictures which the public press afforded him
