Read "Ruth" by Elizabeth Gaskell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It was well they had so early and so truly strengthened the spirit to bear, for the events which had to be endured soon came thick and threefold.
Every evening Mr and Miss Benson thought the worst must be over; and every day brought some fresh occurrence to touch upon the raw place. They could not be certain, until they had seen all their acquaintances, what difference it would make in the cordiality of their reception: in some cases it made much; and Miss Benson was proportionably indignant. She felt this change in behaviour more than her brother. His great pain arose from the coolness of the Bradshaws. With all the faults which had at times grated on his sensitive nature (but which he now forgot, and remembered only their kindness), they were his old familiar friends -- his kind, if ostentatious, patrons -- his great personal interest, out of his own family; and he could not get over the suffering he experienced from seeing their large square pew empty on Sundays -- from perceiving how Mr Bradshaw, though he bowed in a distant manner when he and Mr Benson met face to face, shunned him as often as he possibly could.