She picked up the kettle again and turned her back upon him while she filled the tea-pot at the small table.  For the first time in their talks she had spoken bitterly.

“Nevertheless, I assure you, I refused of my own free will.”

“Is there such a thing as free will in our family?  I never detected it.  As babes we were yoked to the chariot to drag Jack’s soul up to the doors of salvation.  I only rebelled, and—­Charles, I am sorry, but not all penitent.”

He ignored these last words.  “You are quoting from Molly, I think.  She and Jack seldom agree.”

“Because, dear soul, she reads that Jack despises while he uses her.  He looks upon her as the weak one in the team; he doubts she may break down on the road, and she, too, looks forward to it, though not with any fear.”

“For some reason, father allows her to talk to him as no one else does—­not even mother.  Do you know that one day last summer father and I were discussing Jack and the chance of his ever settling at Epworth; for this is in the old man’s thoughts now, almost day and night.  We were in the study by the window, and Molly at the table making a fair copy of the morning’s work on Job; we did not think she heard us.  All of a sudden she looked up and quoted ’Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom and stretch her wings toward the south?’ I supposed she was repeating it aloud from her manuscript, but father knew better and swung round upon her.  ’Do you presume, then, to know whither or how far Jack will fly?’ he demanded.  She turned a queer look upon him, not flinching as I expected, and ‘I shall see him,’ she answered, using Balaam’s words; ’I shall see him, but not now:  I shall behold him, but not nigh.’  And with that she dropped her head and went on quietly with her writing.  As for father, if you’ll believe me, it simply dumbfounded him; he hadn’t a word!”

“And I will tell you why.  Once on a time that weak darling stood up for me to his face.  She would not tell me what happened.  But I believe that ever since father has been as nearly afraid of her as of anyone in the world. . . .  And now I want a promise.  You say you have been happy in these talks of ours; and heaven knows I have been happier than for many a long day.  Well, I want you to tell Molly about me—­alone, remember—­for of them all she only tried to help me, and believes in me still.”

“Why, of course I shall.”

“And,” Hetty smiled, “they have no poet among them now.  You might send me some of your verses for a keepsake.”

Charles grew suddenly red in the face.  “Why—­who told you?” he stammered.

“Oh, my dear,” she laughed merrily, “one divines it! the more easily for having known the temptation.”

He had set down his tea-cup and was standing up now, in his young confusion fingering the sewing she had laid aside.

“What is this you are doing?” he asked, with his eyes on the baby-linen; and though he uttered the first question that came into his head, and merely to cover his blushes, as he asked it the truth came to him, and he blushed more redly than ever.