“Why, and so she is!”

“No doubt:  but it does not follow that John would acknowledge it.  They report their Oxford doings to her, and their plans:  and she listens eagerly and advises.  To me the strange thing is, as she manages it, that her interest does not tie her down to sharing their opinions.  She speaks always as a looker-on, and they recognise this.  She keeps her own mind, just as she has always held to her own view of her marriage.  I have never heard her complain, and to her husband she is an angel:  yet I am sure (without being able to tell you why) that her heart condemns your father and will always condemn him.”

“She knows what her punishment has been:  we can only guess.  Does the man drink still?”

“Yes; he drinks:  but she is no longer anxious about him.  Your Uncle Matthew told me that in his first attacks he used to be no better than a madman.  Something happened:  nobody seems to know precisely what it was, except that he fell and injured his head.  Now the craving for drink remains, but he soaks harmlessly.  No doubt he will kill himself in time; meanwhile even at his worst he is tractable, and obeys Hetty like a child.  To do the man justice, he was always fond of her.”

“Poor Hetty!”

“John has spoken to her once or twice about her soul, I believe:  but he does not persist.”

“H’m,” said Molly, “you had better say that he is biding his time.  John always persists.”

“That’s true,” he owned with a laugh:  “but I have never known him so baffled to all appearance.  The fact is, she cannot be roused to any interest in herself.  Of others she never ceases to think.  It was she, for instance—­when I could not afford to buy myself a gown for ordination—­who started the notion of a subscription in the family.”  He was wearing the gown now, and drew it about him with another laugh.  “Hence the majestic figure I cut before you at this moment.”

“But we all subscribed, sir.  You shall not slight my poor offering—­ all made up as it was of dairy-pence.”

“Miss Molly, all my life is a patchwork made up of kind deeds and kind thoughts from one or other of you.  You do not believe—­”

“Nay, you love us all, John.  I know that well enough.”

For some reason a silence fell between them.  Molly broke it with a laugh, which nevertheless trembled a little.  “Then your gown should be a patchwork, too?”

“Why to be sure it is,” he answered gravely; “and I wish the world could see it so, quartered out upon me like a herald’s coat, and each quartering assigned—­that is Mr. Wesley’s, and that your mother’s, and that, again, your brother John’s—­”

“And the sleeve Miss Molly’s:  I will be content with a sleeve.  Only it must have the armorial bearings proper to a fourth daughter, with my simple motto—­’Butter and New-laid Eggs.’”

The sound of their merriment reached Mrs. Wesley through an open window, and in the dim kitchen Mrs. Wesley smiled to herself.