text:  From the contracted look of his forehead and sudden alteration of his appearance I have reason to think he was beginning to undergo all the moral martyrdom sustained for thirty years past by the unfortunate Sir Laurence Altham; and were I not by nature the most contented of men it would have sufficiently reconciled me to the mediocrity of my fortunes to see that these two great people of my neighbourhood--the nobly-descended baronet and rich _parvenu_--were miserable men; that so long as I could remember one or other of them had been given over to surliness and discontent