The one most altered of all was Charles. Altered in looks, bearing, manner; above all, in spirit. All his pride had flown; all his self-importance had disappeared as a summer mist before the sun: disappeared for ever. Had the discipline he was subjected to been transient, lasting for a few weeks, let us say, or even months, its impressions might have worn away with renewed prosperity, had such set in again, leaving no lasting trace for good. But when this sort of depressing mortification continues for years, the lesson it implants in the mind is generally permanent. Day by day, every day of his life, and every hour in the day, Charles was subjected to the humiliations (as he looked upon them, and to him they were indeed such) that attend the position of a working clerk. He who had been reared in the habits and ideas of a gentleman, had believed himself the undoubted heir to Eagles' Nest, found himself reduced by fate to this subordinate capacity, ordered about by the articled clerks, and regarded as an individual not at all to be ranked with them. He was at their beck and call, and obliged to be so; he had to submit to them as his superiors, not only his superiors in the office, but his superiors socially; above all, he had to submit to their off-hand tones, which always implied, unwittingly, perhaps, to themselves, but all too apparent to Charles, a consciousness of the distinction that existed between them. How galling it all was to Charles Raynor, the reader may imagine; but it can never be described. At first it was all but unbearable. Over and over again he thought he must run away from it, and escape to a land where these distinctions do not exist. He might dig for gold in California; he might clear a settlement for himself in the back-woods of America: and the life in either place would be as paradise compared with this one at Prestleigh and Preen's. Nothing but the broad fact that the wages he earned were absolutely necessary to his mother's and the family's support, detained him. To give that aid was his imperative duty before God: for had it not been through him and his carelessness that they were reduced to this terrible extremity? So Charles Raynor, helped on by the ever-ready counsel of Edina, _endured_ his troubles, put up with his humiliation, and bore onwards with the best resolution he could call up. Who knew, who could ever know, _how much_ of this wonderful change was really due to Edina?