He chinked and crowed with laughing delight, and clutched at her cap, and pulled it off.  Her short rich curls were golden-brown in the slanting sun-light, and by their very shortness made her more childlike.  She hardly seemed as if she could be the mother of the noble babe over whom she knelt, now snatching kisses, now matching his cheek with rose-leaves.  All at once, the bells of the old church struck the hour, and far away, high up in the air, began slowly to play the old tune of “Life, let us cherish;” they had played it for years—­for the life of man—­and it always sounded fresh, and strange, and aerial.  Ruth was still in a moment, she knew not why; and the tears came into her eyes as she listened.  When it was ended, she kissed her baby, and bade God bless him.

Just then Sally came out, dressed for the evening, with a leisurely look about her.  She had done her work, and she and Ruth were to drink tea together in the exquisitely clean kitchen; but while the kettle was boiling, she came out to enjoy the flowers.  She gathered a piece of southern-wood, and stuffed it up her nose, by way of smelling it.

“Whatten you call this in your country?” asked she.

“Old-man,” replied Ruth.

“We call it here lad’s-love.  It and peppermint drops always reminds me of going to church in the country.  Here!  I’ll get you a black-currant leaf to put in the teapot.  It gives it a flavour.  We had bees once against this wall; but when missus died, we forgot to tell ’em and put ’em in mourning, and, in course, they swarmed away without our knowing, and the next winter came a hard frost, and they died.  Now, I dare say, the water will be boiling; and it’s time for little master there to come in, for the dew is falling.  See, all the daisies is shutting themselves up.”

Sally was most gracious as a hostess.  She quite put on her company manners to receive Ruth in the kitchen.  They laid Leonard to sleep on the sofa in the parlour, that they might hear him the more easily, and then they sat quietly down to their sewing by the bright kitchen fire.  Sally was, as usual, the talker; and, as usual, the subject was the family of whom for so many years she had formed a part.

“Ay! things was different when I was a girl,” quoth she.  “Eggs was thirty for a shilling, and butter only sixpence a pound.  My wage when I came here was but three pound, and I did on it, and was always clean and tidy, which is more than many a lass can say now who gets seven and eight pound a year; and tea was kept for an afternoon drink, and pudding was eaten afore meat in them days, and the upshot was, people paid their debts better; ay, ay! we’n gone backwards, and we thinken we’n gone forrards.”