Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/236

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THE TENANT

CHAPTER XIII.


A RETURN TO DUTY.


"My dear Gilbert! I wish you would try to be a little more amiable," said my mother, one morning after some display of unjustifiable ill humour on my part. "You say there is nothing the matter with you, and nothing has happened to grieve you, and yet, I never saw any one so altered as you within these last few days: you haven't a good word for any body—friends and strangers, equals and inferiors—it's all the same. I do wish you'd try to check it."

"Check what?"