’Long may ye live,
Happy may ye he,
And blest with a num’rous
Pro-ge-ny.’

‘Theere, that’s po’try for yo’ as I larnt i’ my youth.  But there’s a deal to be said as cannot be put int’ po’try, an’ yet a cannot say it, somehow.  It ‘d tax a parson t’ say a’ as a’ve getten i’ my mind.  It’s like a heap o’ woo’ just after shearin’ time; it’s worth a deal, but it tak’s a vast o’ combin’, an’ cardin’, an’ spinnin’ afore it can be made use on.  If a were up to t’ use o’ words, a could say a mighty deal; but somehow a’m tongue-teed when a come to want my words most, so a’ll only just mak’ bold t’ say as a think yo’ve done pretty well for yo’rsel’, getten a house-full o’ furniture’ (looking around him as he said this), ‘an’ vittle an’ clothin’ for t’ axing, belike, an’ a home for t’ missus in her time o’ need; an’ mebbe not such a bad husband as a once thought yon man ‘ud mak’; a’m not above sayin’ as he’s, mebbe, better nor a took him for;—­so here’s to ye both, and wishin’ ye health and happiness, ay, and money to buy yo’ another, as country folk say.’

Having ended his oration, much to his own satisfaction, Kester tossed off his glass of wine, smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, pocketed his cake, and made off.

That night Sylvia spoke of his visit to her husband.  Philip never said how he himself had brought it to pass, nor did he name the fact that he had heard the old man come in just as he himself had intended going into the parlour for tea, but had kept away, as he thought Sylvia and Kester would most enjoy their interview undisturbed.  And Sylvia felt as if her husband’s silence was unsympathizing, and shut up the feelings that were just beginning to expand towards him.  She sank again into the listless state of indifference from which nothing but some reference to former days, or present consideration for her mother, could rouse her.

Hester was almost surprised at Sylvia’s evident liking for her.  By slow degrees Hester was learning to love the woman, whose position as Philip’s wife she would have envied so keenly had she not been so truly good and pious.  But Sylvia seemed as though she had given Hester her whole affection all at once.  Hester could not understand this, while she was touched and melted by the trust it implied.  For one thing Sylvia remembered and regretted—­her harsh treatment of Hester the rainy, stormy night on which the latter had come to Haytersbank to seek her and her mother, and bring them into Monkshaven to see the imprisoned father and husband.  Sylvia had been struck with Hester’s patient endurance of her rudeness, a rudeness which she was conscious that she herself should have immediately and vehemently resented.  Sylvia did not understand how a totally different character from hers might immediately forgive the anger she could not forget; and because Hester had been so meek at the time, Sylvia, who knew how passing and transitory was her own anger, thought that all was forgotten; while Hester believed that the words, which she herself could not have uttered except under deep provocation, meant much more than they did, and admired and wondered at Sylvia for having so entirely conquered her anger against her.