374 THE FELLOW ANTIPODES. 



dubious victory was not without its price ; a red coal fell upon 

 his fingers, and, his immoveable visage drawn for once into a 



* 



grimace by pain, spite, and disappointment, he threw the dis- 

 membered limb into the fire. Lucy burst into tears ; I, to see 

 her, doubled my fist, and actually dealt our writing-master a 

 sound blow ; and as to Dolly, no words, no pencil can depict 

 the change that came over her. She neither shed a tear nor 

 would she have struck a blow, hardly felt, perhaps, either 

 sorrow or anger, all else swallowed up in a sudden shuddering 

 presentiment, fearfully anticipative of some coming calamity, 

 connected mysteriously with the violence just done to the 

 cricket, the last cricket of her hearth, the last good genius of 

 our home. 



She looked at Caleb, and Caleb's ink-blot eyes were actually 

 downcast at the look. It seemed to prick, for the moment, 

 even through the hard-sized pasteboard of prosaic rigidity- 

 formal self-importance \\aiii of sympathy want of power to 

 sympathize, which enveloped that shrivelled bit of internal 

 anatomy we must call his heart. He and Dolly had lived 

 together for near upon half a century, and, antipodes as they 

 were, habit had connected them by a sort of at least imaginary 

 axis. They had likewise a central point of attraction (the sun 

 of the system round which they had so long revolved) in their 

 quiet, kind old master, to whom, and to all that belonged to 

 him, they were each, according to their natures, diversely 

 attached ; Dolly warmly, devotedly ; Caleb habitually, me- 

 chanically. 



