“I am very lonely, Greenwood.  This world seems empty without her.  Why was she taken away from it?”

“Perhaps she was wanted in some other world, sir.”

John lifted a startled face to the speaker, and the man added with an air of happy triumph, as he walked away,

“A far better world, sir.”

For a moment John rested his head on his hand, then he lifted his face and with level brows fronted the grief he must learn to bear.

Jane’s sorrow was a far more severe and constant one.  Martha had been part of all her employments.  She could do nothing and go nowhere, but the act and the place were steeped in memories of the child.  All her work, all her way, all her thoughts, began and ended with Martha.  She fell into a dangerous condition of self-immolation.  She complained that no one cared for her, that her suffering was uniquely great, and that she alone was the only soul who remembered the dead and loved them.

Mrs. Stephen came from her retreat in Hatton Hall one day in order to combat this illusion.

“Three mothers living in Hatton village hev buried children this week, Jane,” she said.  “Two of them went back to the mill this morning.”

“I think it was very wicked of them.”

“They hed to go back.  They had living children to work for.  When the living cling to you, then you must put the dead aside for the living.  God cares for the dead and they hev all they want in His care.  If you feel that you must fret youself useless to either living or dead, try the living.  They’ll mostly give you every reason for fretting.”

“John has quite forgotten poor little Martha.”

“He’s done nothing of that sort, but I think thou hes forgotten John, poor fellow!  I’m sorry for John, I am that!”

“You have no cause to say such things, mother, and I will not listen to them.  John has become wrapped up in that dreadful mill, and when he comes home at night, he will not talk of Martha.”

“I am glad he won’t and thou ought to be glad too.  How can any man work his brains all day in noise and worry and confusion and then come home and fret his heart out all night about a child that is in Heavenly keeping and a wife that doesn’t know what is good either for herself or anybody else.  Listen to me!  I am going to give thee a grain of solid truthful sense.  The best man in the world will cease giving sympathy when he sees that it does no good and that he must give it over and over every day.  I wonder John gave it as long as he did!  I do that.  If I was thee, I would try to forget myself a bit.  I would let the sunshine into these beautiful rooms.  If thou doesn’t, the moths will eat up thy fine carpets and cushions, and thou will become one of those chronic, disagreeable invalids that nobody on earth—­and I wouldn’t wonder if nobody in heaven either—­cares a button for.”

Jane defended herself with an equal sincerity, and a good many truths were made clear to her that had only hitherto been like a restless movement of her consciousness.  In fact the Lady of Hatton Hall left her daughter-in-law penetrated with a new sense of her position.  Nor was this sense at all lightened or brightened by her parting remarks.