What their relationship might mean to him was still vague--to be decided by the future.

Whatever softness there was in the boy was at this moment called out by other people--by old 'Lias and his wife; by Mr.Ancrum, the lame minister at Clough End; by the dogs; hardly ever by Louie.

He had grown used, moreover, to her perpetual explosions, and took them generally with a boy's natural callousness.
But to-night her woes affected him as they had never done before.
The sound of her sobbing, as he stood listening, gradually roused in him an unbearable restlessness.

An unaccountable depression stole upon him--the reaction, perhaps, from a good deal of mental exertion and excitement in the day.

A sort of sick distaste awoke in him for most of the incidents of existence--for Aunt Hannah, for Uncle Reuben's incomprehensible prayers, for the thought of the long Puritanical Sunday just coming.