It is much less difficult for the sufferer to be generous than for the oppressor.

John Bold felt that he could not go to the warden's party: he never loved Eleanor better than he did now; he had never so strongly felt how anxious he was to make her his wife as now, when so many obstacles to his doing so appeared in view.

Yet here was her father himself, as it were, clearing away those very obstacles, and still he felt that he could not go to the house any more as an open friend.
As he sat thinking of these things with the note in his hand, his sister was waiting for his decision.
"Well," said she, "I suppose we must write separate answers, and both say we shall be very happy." "You'll go, of course, Mary," said he; to which she readily assented.
"I cannot," he continued, looking serious and gloomy.

"I wish I could, with all my heart." "And why not, John ?" said she.

She had as yet heard nothing of the new-found abuse which her brother was about to reform;--at least nothing which connected it with her brother's name.
He sat thinking for a while till he determined that it would be best to tell her at once what it was that he was about: it must be done sooner or later.
"I fear I cannot go to Mr Harding's house any more as a friend, just at present." "Oh, John! Why not?
Ah, you've quarrelled with Eleanor!" "No, indeed," said he; "I've no quarrel with her as yet." "What is it, John ?" said she, looking at him with an anxious, loving face, for she knew well how much of his heart was there in that house which he said he could no longer enter.
"Why," said he at last, "I've taken up the case of these twelve old men of Hiram's Hospital, and of course that brings me into contact with Mr Harding.