Stephen White had this lesson yet to learn.
The practical inconvenience of being unpopular, however, he began to feel keenly, as month after month passed by, and nobody would rent the other half of the house in which he and his mother lived.

Small as the rent was, it was a matter of great moment to them; for his earnings as clerk and copyist were barely enough to give them food.

He was still retained by his father's partner in the same position which he had held during his father's life.

But old Mr.Williams was not wholly free from the general prejudice against Stephen, as an aristocratic fellow, given to dreams and fancies; and Stephen knew very well that he held the position only as it were on a sort of sufferance, because Mr.Williams had loved his father.
Moreover, law business in Penfield was growing duller and duller.

A younger firm in the county town, only twelve miles away, was robbing them of clients continually; and there were many long days during which Stephen sat idle at his desk, looking out in a vague, dreamy way on the street below, and wondering if the time were really coming when Mr.Williams would need a clerk no longer; and, if it did come, what he could possibly find to do in that town, by which he could earn money enough to support his mother.