The estrangement between them caused him, knowingly or unknowingly, grossly to offend her where he would not have done.
William was only one year old, and his mother was proud of him, he was so pretty. She was not well off now, but her sisters kept the boy in clothes. Then, with his little white hat curled with an ostrich feather, and his white coat, he was a joy to her, the twining wisps of hair clustering round his head. Mrs. Morel lay listening, one Sunday morning, to the chatter of the father and child downstairs. Then she dozed off. When she came downstairs, a great fire glowed in the grate, the room was hot, the breakfast was roughly laid, and seated in his armchair, against the chimney-piece, sat Morel, rather timid; and standing between his legs, the child — cropped like a sheep, with such an odd round poll — looking wondering at her; and on a newspaper spread out upon the hearthrug, a myriad of crescentshaped curls, like the petals of a marigold scattered in the reddening firelight.