"A little extra work would be the best physic for Miss Bessie." She had
put on a good stone of flesh since he had seen her last, he would declare.
Work never killed half the women that idleness killed.
On a Sunday afternoon soon after that concert to which the girls had been
escorted by the lodger, George Boult, his business exhortation finished,
sprang on the poor mother the news that her son at the branch shop at
Ingleby was not giving satisfaction.
A complaint of incivility to a customer had come to the ear of the local
manager, who had reported to the Head at Brockenham, delivering himself of
the opinion at the same time that the young man played billiards at the
Rose and Crown more than was consistent with his means, or the devotion he
should have shown to his employer's interests.
Lydia Day listened, her dark, handsome face of a lead white, while the man
seated at the table opposite to her condemned her son utterly as one who
was flinging away a fine chance. He, George Boult, had been thrown, at
Bernard's age, on his own resources. Never that he could recall had a
helping hand been held to him. (Men of the stamp of George Boult never
recognise the helping hand.) Work had been his pleasure.
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