To the ordinary beholder, the man seemed accoutred in the ordinary fashion of soldiers; but, whenever a bullet struck him, it glanced off harmlessly as if turned back by a spell.

It was so with Stephen White's silence: in ordinary intercourse, he was social genial; he talked more than average men talk; he took or seemed to take, more interest than men usually take in the common small talk of average people; but the instant there was a manifestation of anger, of discord of any thing unpleasant, he entrenched himself in silence.

This was especially the case when he was reproached or aroused by his mother.

It was often more provoking to her than any amount of retort or recrimination could have been.

She had in her nature a certain sort of slow ugliness which delighted in dwelling upon a small offence, in asking irritating questions about it, in reiterating its details; all the while making it out a matter of personal unkindness or indifference to her that it should have happened.