Her hair, turned back in
beautifully flowing lines, helped the queenly suggestion. Harry looked
resolutely away; then he heard her voice, sweet and low, and recollected
that beside himself no man, woman, or child in Waddy was mean enough to
cherish a hard thought of Miss Chris. Beside himself? He turned fiercely,
as if for refuge, to his dislike for her father. His failure to find the
smallest clue to justify his opinion and that of his mother as to the
real merits of the crime at the Silver Stream left him more bitter
towards the searcher, the one man whose words and actions had convicted
Frank. He would not admit his hatred to be unfair or unreasonable, and
his moroseness deepened as time showed him how heavily the disgrace and
sorrow lay upon his mother, although her words were always cheerful and
her faith unconquerable.
The walk home that night was not a pleasant one to Chris. She was
piteously anxious to have him think kindly of her, and this made itself
felt through Harry's roughest mood; then he had an absurd impulse to
throw out his arms and offer her protection and tenderness. Absurd
because, turning towards her, he was compelled to look upwards into her
eyes, and the tall, strong figure at his side, walking erect, with firm
square shoulders, dwarfed his conceit till he felt himself morally and
physically a pigmy.
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