Jack, in a chronic state of disobedience and revolt, was to her an utterly unsolvable problem. She was always kind to him, — it was not in her to be otherwise to any living thing, — but she looked upon him with a sort of dread, and with a feeling which, in a more definite nature, would have been dislike; he was so incon­venient. Her little careful plans to make things "go smoothly" were always being disturbed and thrown out by this one impos­sible factor.

If it had crossed her mind that the boy was lonely and miserable she would have been sincerely horrified; merely to read in the parish magazine of an ill-used child was enough to make her cry; and, timid as she was, she had often risked the displeasure of her god on earth by trying to beg Jack off from various punishments. Had he ever tried to beg himself off, she would have liked him better; his hard indifference repelled her. She herself, though a most conscientious woman, had once even stepped a little aside from the exact truth to screen him from the Vicar's anger. She had been found out, of course; for Jack, when asked about the matter, had told the truth at once. The worst of it was that his habit of acknowledg­ing his misdeeds appeared to be the result of sheer bravado, not of any love for veracity; for he had no scruples about telling any number of falsehoods when it suited his pur­pose to do so. But he never prevaricated; when he told a lie, he did it deliberately, with a straight look between the eyes; and that, again, Aunt Sarah could not understand. So beyond much gentle moralising, pathetically futile, her vicarious motherhood, in his case, could not go. She lavished all her affection on Molly, whose evil tendencies, if they were there at all, were still hidden in the mists of babyhood; and left Jack to struggle with a bitter heart as best he might.

He was not envious because his sister was preferred before him. In a certain stiff, shy way of his own he was fond of the child.