’Mr. Hale is good, and gentle, and learned.  He is not saucy.  As for Mrs. Hale, I will tell you what she is like to-night, if you care to hear.’  He shut the door and was gone.

’Despise my son! treat him as her vassal, indeed!  Humph!  I should like to know where she could find such another!  Boy and man, he’s the noblest, stoutest heart I ever knew.  I don’t care if I am his mother; I can see what’s what, and not be blind.  I know what Fanny is; and I know what John is.  Despise him!  I hate her!’

CHAPTER X

WROUGHT IRON AND GOLD

‘We are the trees whom shaking fastens more.’  George Herbert.

Mr. Thornton left the house without coming into the dining-room again.  He was rather late, and walked rapidly out to Crampton.  He was anxious not to slight his new friend by any disrespectful unpunctuality.  The church-clock struck half-past seven as he stood at the door awaiting Dixon’s slow movements; always doubly tardy when she had to degrade herself by answering the door-bell.  He was ushered into the little drawing-room, and kindly greeted by Mr. Hale, who led him up to his wife, whose pale face, and shawl-draped figure made a silent excuse for the cold languor of her greeting.  Margaret was lighting the lamp when he entered, for the darkness was coming on.  The lamp threw a pretty light into the centre of the dusky room, from which, with country habits, they did not exclude the night-skies, and the outer darkness of air.  Somehow, that room contrasted itself with the one he had lately left; handsome, ponderous, with no sign of feminine habitation, except in the one spot where his mother sate, and no convenience for any other employment than eating and drinking.  To be sure, it was a dining-room; his mother preferred to sit in it; and her will was a household law.  But the drawing-room was not like this.  It was twice—­twenty times as fine; not one quarter as comfortable.  Here were no mirrors, not even a scrap of glass to reflect the light, and answer the same purpose as water in a landscape; no gilding; a warm, sober breadth of colouring, well relieved by the dear old Helstone chintz-curtains and chair covers.  An open davenport stood in the window opposite the door; in the other there was a stand, with a tall white china vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale-green birch, and copper-coloured beech-leaves.  Pretty baskets of work stood about in different places:  and books, not cared for on account of their binding solely, lay on one table, as if recently put down.  Behind the door was another table, decked out for tea, with a white tablecloth, on which flourished the cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket piled with oranges and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves.