Where he had looked for love, she gave him first aversion and then hate.
Where he growing older had sought a little sympathy, she gave him ridicule. The
many hours that she could spare from the ordering of her small house she
devoted to what she called the home-training of Dick Heldar. Her religion,
manufactured in the main by her own intelligence and a keen study of the
Scriptures, was an aid to her in this matter. At such times as she herself was
not personally displeased with Dick, she left him to understand that he had a
heavy account to settle with his Creator; wherefore Dick learned to loathe his
God as intensely as he loathed Mrs. Jennett; and this is not a wholesome frame
of mind for the young. Since she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, when
dread of pain drove him to his first untruth he naturally developed into a
liar, but an economical and self-contained one, never throwing away the least
unnecessary fib, and never hesitating at the blackest, were it only plausible,
that might make his life a little easier. The treatment taught him at least the
power of living alone,--a power that was of service to him when he went to a
public school and the boys laughed at his clothes, which were poor in quality
and much mended.
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