It had become a matter of personal pride with them
respectively to attack and defend _The Sunrise_, as I shall
call the little sheet, though that was not the name; and Mr. Sewell
had lately made some gain through the character of the police
reports, which _The Sunrise_ had been developing into a feature. It
was not that offensive matters were introduced; the worst cases
were in fact rather blinked, but Sewell insisted that the tone of
flippant gaiety with which many facts, so serious, so tragic for
their perpetrators and victims, were treated was odious. He objected
to the court being called a Mill, and prisoners Grists, and the
procedure Grinding; he objected to the familiar name of Uncle for
the worthy gentleman to whose care certain offenders were confided
on probation. He now read that department of _The Sunrise_ the first
thing every morning, in the hope of finding something with which to put
Mrs. Sewell hopelessly in the wrong, but this morning a heading in
the foreign news of the _Advertiser_ caught his eye, and he laid
_The Sunrise_ aside to read at the breakfast-table. His wife came
down in a cotton dress, as a tribute to the continued warmth of the
weather, and said that she had not called the children, because it was
Saturday, and they might as well have their sleep out. He liked to
see her in that dress; it had a leafy rustling that was pleasant to
his ear, and as she looked into the library he gaily put out his hand,
which she took, and suffered herself to be drawn toward him.
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