But, in his secret opinion, she was spoilt and mismanaged; and he talked a good deal to Phoebe about her bringing-up, theorising and haranguing in his usual way.

Phoebe listened generally with impatience, resenting interference with her special domain.

And often, when she saw the father and child together, a fresh and ugly misery would raise its head.

Would he in time set even Carrie against her--teach the child to look down upon its mother?
One day he returned from Ambleside, pale and excited--bringing a Manchester paper.
'Phoebe!' he called, from the gate.
Startled by something in his voice, Phoebe ran out to him.
'Phoebe, an awful thing's happened! Old Morrison's--dead! Look here!' And he showed her a paragraph headed 'Defalcations and suicide.' It described how Mr.James Morrison, the chief cashier of the Bartonbury Bank, had committed suicide immediately after the discovery by the bank authorities of large falsifications in the bank accounts.

Mr.
Morrison had shot himself, leaving a statement acknowledging a long course of fraudulent dealings with the funds entrusted to him, and pleading with his employers for his wife and daughter.