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 dismembered 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, per- 

 haps, 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 want 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 imagi- 

 nary axis. They had likewise a central point of attraction 

 (the sun of the system round which they had so long revolv- 

 ed) 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 habitu- 

 ally, mechanically. 



