“I am thy true friend, Jane, that is something better than thy mother-in-law.  I want to see thee and John happy, and I assure thee it will be easy now to take one step thou must never take if thou wants another happy hour.  John is Yorkshire, flesh and bone, heart and soul, and thou ought to know that Yorkshiremen take no back steps.  If John’s love wanes, though it be ever so little, it has waned for thee to the end of thy life.  Thou can never win it back. Never! So, I advise thee to mind thy ways, and thy words.”

“Thank you, mother.  I know you speak to me out of a sincere heart.”

“To be sure I do.  And out of a kind heart also. Why-a! When John said to me, ‘Mother, I love Jane Harlow,’ I answered, ’Thou art right to love her.  She is a fit and proper wife for thee,’ and I made up my mind to love thee, too—­faults included.”

“Then love me now, mother.  John minds your lightest word.  Tell him to be patient with me.”

“I will—­but thou must do thy best to even things.  Thou must be more interested in John.  Martha is with God.  If she hed lived, thou would varry soon be sending her off to some unlovelike, polite boarding-school, and a few years later thou would make a grand feast, and deck her in satin and lace and jewels and give her as a sacrifice to some man thou knew little about—­just as the old pagans used to dress up the young heifers with flowers and ribbons before they offered them in blood and flame to Jupiter or the like of him.  Martha was God’s child and He took her, and I must say, thou gave her up to Him in a varry grudging way.”

“Mother, I am going to do better.  Forgive me.”

“Nay, my dear lass, seek thou God’s forgiveness and all the rest will come easy.  It is against Him, and Him only, thou hast sinned; but He is long-suffering, plenteous in mercy, and ready to forgive.”  And then these two women, who had scarcely spoken for years, kissed each other and were true friends ever after.  So good are the faithful words of those who dare to speak the truth in love and wisdom.

As it generally happens, however, things were all unfavorable to Jane’s resolve.  John had been impeded all day by inefficient or careless services; even Greenwood had misunderstood an order and made an impossible appointment which had only been canceled with offense and inconvenience.  The whole day indeed had worked itself away to cross purpose, and John came home weary with the aching brows that annoyance and worry touch with a peculiar depressing neuralgia.  It need not be described; there are very few who are not familiar with its exhausting, melancholy dejection.

John did his best to meet his wife’s more cheerful mood, but the strongest men are often very poor bearers of physical pain.  Jane would have suffered—­and did often suffer—­the same distress with far less complaint.  Women, too, soon learn to alleviate such a cruel sensation, but John had a strong natural repugnance for drugs and liniments, and it was only when he was weary of Jane’s entreaties that he submitted to a merciful medication which ended in a restorative sleep.