There was no evidence of it in me; I know of no influence it had in anything I said or did.

I bore the weight of all our little cares, and all my projects; Dora held the pens; and we both felt that our shares were adjusted as the case required. She was truly fond of me, and proud of me; and when Agnes wrote a few earnest words in her letters to Dora, of the pride and interest with which my old friends heard of my growing reputation, and read my book as if they heard me speaking its contents, Dora read them out to me with tears of joy in her bright eyes, and said I was a dear old clever, famous boy.

‘The first mistaken impulse of an undisciplined heart.’ Those words of Mrs. Strong’s were constantly recurring to me, at this time; were almost always present to my mind.