Mrs. Thornton had sat in the dining-room all day, every moment expecting the news of her son’s acceptance by Miss Hale.  She had braced herself up many and many a time, at some sudden noise in the house; had caught up the half-dropped work, and begun to ply her needle diligently, though through dimmed spectacles, and with an unsteady hand! and many times had the door opened, and some indifferent person entered on some insignificant errand.  Then her rigid face unstiffened from its gray frost-bound expression, and the features dropped into the relaxed look of despondency, so unusual to their sternness.  She wrenched herself away from the contemplation of all the dreary changes that would be brought about to herself by her son’s marriage; she forced her thoughts into the accustomed household grooves.  The newly-married couple-to-be would need fresh household stocks of linen; and Mrs. Thornton had clothes-basket upon clothes-basket, full of table-cloths and napkins, brought in, and began to reckon up the store.  There was some confusion between what was hers, and consequently marked G. H. T. (for George and Hannah Thornton), and what was her son’s—­bought with his money, marked with his initials.  Some of those marked G. H. T. were Dutch damask of the old kind, exquisitely fine; none were like them now.  Mrs. Thornton stood looking at them long,—­they had been her pride when she was first married.  Then she knit her brows, and pinched and compressed her lips tight, and carefully unpicked the G. H. She went so far as to search for the Turkey-red marking-thread to put in the new initials; but it was all used,—­and she had no heart to send for any more just yet.  So she looked fixedly at vacancy; a series of visions passing before her, in all of which her son was the principal, the sole object,—­her son, her pride, her property.  Still he did not come.  Doubtless he was with Miss Hale.  The new love was displacing her already from her place as first in his heart.  A terrible pain—­a pang of vain jealousy—­shot through her:  she hardly knew whether it was more physical or mental; but it forced her to sit down.  In a moment, she was up again as straight as ever,—­a grim smile upon her face for the first time that day, ready for the door opening, and the rejoicing triumphant one, who should never know the sore regret his mother felt at his marriage.  In all this, there was little thought enough of the future daughter-in-law as an individual.  She was to be John’s wife.  To take Mrs. Thornton’s place as mistress of the house, was only one of the rich consequences which decked out the supreme glory; all household plenty and comfort, all purple and fine linen, honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, would all come as naturally as jewels on a king’s robe, and be as little thought of for their separate value.  To be chosen by John, would separate a kitchen-wench from the rest of the world.  And Miss Hale was not so bad.  If she had been a Milton lass, Mrs. Thornton would