CHAPTER XXXVII.
LYDGATE STEET.
Letty's whole life was now gathered about her boy, and she thought little, comparatively, about Tom.

And Tom thought so little about her that he did not perceive the difference.

When he came home, he was always in a hurry to be gone again.

He had always something important to do, but it never showed itself to Letty in the shape of money.

He gave her a little now and then, of course, and she made it go incredibly far, but it was ever with more of a grudge that he gave it.
The influence over him of Sepia was scarcely less now that she was gone; but, if she cared for him at all, it was mainly that, being now not a little stale-hearted, his devotion reminded her pleasurably of a time when other passions than those of self-preservation were strongest in her; and her favor even now tended only to the increase of Tom's growing disappointment, for, like Macbeth, he had begun already to consider life but a poor affair.