Mrs. Levy went to interview the milk dealer; Jane was cold and went into the cottage to warm herself.  “It is well I’m at ironing today,” said Mrs. Brent, “for so I hev a good fire.  Come your ways in, ma’am, and sit on the hearth.  Let me make you a cup o’ tea.”

“My friend will be here in a few minutes,” Jane answered.  “She only wants to make a bargain with Mr. Brent for all his milk.”

“Then she won’t be back in a few minutes; Sam Brent does no business in a hurry.  It’s against his principles.  You bed better hev a cup o’ hot tea.”

It seemed easier to Jane to agree than to dispute, and as the kettle was simmering on the hob it was ready in five minutes.  “You see,” continued Mrs. Brent, “I hev a big family, and washing and ironing does come a bit hard on me now, but a cup o’ tea livens me up, it does that!”

“How many children have you, Mrs. Brent?”

“I hev been married seventeen years, and I hev ten lads and lasses—­all of them fair and good and world-like.  God bless them!”

“Ten!  Ten!  How do you manage?”

“Varry well indeed.  Sam Brent is a forelooking man.  They hev a good father, and I try to keep step with him.  We are varry proud of our childer.  The eldest is a boy and helps his father with the cows main well.  The second is a girl and stands by her mother—­the rest are at school, or just babies.  It is hard times, it is that, but God blesses our crust and our cup, and we don’t want.  We be all well and healthy, too.”

“I wonder you are not broken down with bearing so many children.”

“Nay, not I!  Every fresh baby gives me fresh youth and health—­if I do it justice.  Don’t you find it so, ma’am?”

“No.”

“How many hev you hed?”

“One.  A little girl.”

“Eh, but that’s a shame!  What does your good man say?”

“He would like more.”

“I should think he would like more.  And it is only fair and square he should hev more!  Poor fellow!”

“I do not think so.”

“Whatever is the matter with thee?”

“I think it is a shame and a great wrong for a woman to spend her life in bearing and rearing children.”

“To bear and to rear children for His glory is exactly and perfectly what God sent her into the world to do.  It is her work in the days which the Lord her God gives her.  Men He told to work.  Women He told to hev children and plenty o’ them.”

“There are more women working in the factories than men now.”

“They hev no business there.  They are worse for it every way.  They ought to be in some kind of a home, making happiness and bringing up boys and girls.  Look at the whimpering, puny, sick babies factory women bear—­God, how I pity them!”

“Tell me the truth, Mrs. Brent.  Were you really glad to have ten children?”

“To be sure, I was glad.  Every one of them was varry welcome.  I used to say to mysen, ’God must think Susy Brent a good mother, or He wouldn’t keep on sending her children to bring up for Him.’  It is my work in this life, missis, to bring up the children God sends me, and I like my work!” With the last four words, she turned a beaming face to Jane and sent them home with an emphatic thump of her iron on the little shirt she was smoothing.