Aunt Mary, during all this period, had been regularly visiting her son once a week with fresh home-supplies, and, by observing the change in my cousin after one of these visits, I suspected that her wishes were gradually perverting his original intentions towards me. Moses was absolute over his brother David and myself, but when Aunt appeared it was obvious, even to me, that, however great her respect for his talents was, his personality sank in the presence of her masterful spirit. The stronger nature of his mother ruled him as completely at Brynford as when he was a tiny boy at home. In the same way that his mother showed her pride in her son Moses, her son was proud of his mother’s fine qualities, her wise management of her property and business, and the esteem she won from all who came near her, as an honourable, far-seeing, and right-judging woman. A pity it is that Moses did not pursue the shorter and nobler course with me. It was but due to his mother that her wishes should prevail, but by hesitating, and gradually working himself into a dislike of me, he deprived me of the sweet memory of his goodness. Had he but called me and said, ‘I am too poor to play the benevolent cousin longer, and we must part,’ and sent me off there and then, I should have lived to honour him for his straightforwardness, and to remember with gratitude that, as long as he was able to, he was graciously beneficent. But, with every spoonful of food I ate, I had to endure a worded sting that left a rankling sore. I was ‘a dolt, a born imbecile, and incorrigible dunce.’ When the tears commenced to fall, the invectives poured on my bent head. I was ‘a disgrace to him, a blockhead, an idiot.’ If, wearying of this, I armed myself with a stony impassiveness, he would vary his charges and say, ‘I had hoped to make a man of you, but you are bound to remain a clod-hopper; your stupidity is monstrous, perfectly monstrous!’ He would push back his chair from the table, and with fierce, brow-beating glances exclaim, ‘Your head must be full of mud instead of brains. Seven hours for one proposition! I never knew the equal of this numskull. I can endure no more of this. You must go back whence you came. You are good for nothing but to cobble paupers’ boots,’ etc., etc. It would be difficult to decide whether I, becoming more and more confused by this wholly-unlooked-for violence, and confounded by a growing belief in my worthlessness, or Moses, tired with his self-imposed task of teaching his unfortunate cousin, deserved the more pity. Had I been in his place, and believed my protégé to be the matchless dunce he described me to be, I could never have had the heart to bait him to despair, but would have sought an occupation for him more suited for his capacities. Moses appears to have required time to heat himself thoroughly for such a resolve, and, in his desire for a proper pretence, he was becoming cruel.