“So he does, mother—­God bless him!”

“Well, John, I can’t stop and talk with thee all day, it isn’t likely; but thou art such a one to tempt talk.  I must be off to do something.  Good-bye, dear lad, and if thy trouble gets hard on thee and thou wants a word of human love, thy mother always has it ready and waiting for you—­so she has!”

John watched his mother out of sight; then he locked his desk and went about her commission.  She had trusted him to find beds for thirty-four children, and it never entered his mind that any desire of hers could possibly be neglected.  Fortunately, circumstances had gone before him and prepared for his necessity.  The mattresses were easily found and carried to the prepared room, and the children had been nourished on warm milk and bread, had been rolled in blankets and had gone to sleep ere John arrived at his own home.  He was half-an-hour behind time, and Jane did not like that lost half-hour, so he expected her usual little plaintive reproach, “You are late tonight, John.”  But she met him silently, slipped her hand into his and looked into his face with eyes tender with love and dim with sorrow.

“Did you see those little children from Metwold, John?”

“No, my dear.  Mother told me about them.”

“Your mother is a good woman, John.  I saw her today bathing babies that looked as if they had never been washed since they were born.  Oh, how they smiled lying in the warm water!  And how tenderly she rubbed them and fed them and rocked them to sleep in her arms.  John, your mother would mother any miserable neglected child.  She made me cry.  My anger melted away this afternoon as I watched her.  I forgave her everything.”

“O my darling!  My darling Jane!”

“I wanted to kiss her, and tell her so.”

After this confession it seemed easier for John to tell his wife that he must close the mill in the morning.  They were sitting together on the hearth.  Dinner was over and the room was very still.  John was smoking a cigar whose odor Jane liked, and her head leaned against his shoulder, and now and then they said a low, loving word, and now and then he kissed her.

“John,” she said finally, “I had a letter from Aunt Harlow today.  She is in trouble.”

“I am sorry for it.”

“Her only child has been killed in a skirmish with the Afghans—­killed in a lonely pass of the mountains and buried there.  It happened a little while since and his comrades had forgotten where his grave was.  The man who slew him, pointed it out.  He had been buried in his uniform, and my uncle received his ring and purse and a scarf-pin he bought for a parting present the day he sailed for India.”

“I do not recollect.  I never saw him, I am sure.”

“Oh, no!  He went with his regiment to Simla seventeen years ago.  Then he married a Begum or Indian princess or something unusual.  She was very rich but also very dark, and Uncle would not forgive him for it.  After the marriage his name was never mentioned in Harlow House, but he was not forgotten and his mother never ceased to love him.  When they heard of his death, Uncle sent the proper people to make investigations because of the succession, you know.”