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134 with fresh tenderness. "An' to think that prosperity goes with it too. I've said to myself that I wasn't worthy of it, because I couldn't never be grateful enough. He might have been prosperous, and not what he is. Many a better woman than me has had that grief to bear, an' I've been spared it."

When Miss Ffrench returned to her carriage she wore a reflective look. When she had seated herself comfortably, she spoke aloud:

"No, there are ten chances to one that she will never see the other side at all. There is not a man or woman in Broxton who would dare to tell her. I would not do it myself."

When Haworth returned at night he heard the particulars of the visit, as he had known he should when Ffrench told him that it was his daughter's intention to call that day.

"The beautifulest young lady my old eyes ever saw, my dear," his mother said again and again. "An' to think of her comin' to see me, as if I'd been a lady like herself."

Haworth spoke but little. He seldom said much in these days. He sat at the table drinking his after-dinner wine, and putting a question now and then.

"What did she say?" he asked.

She stopped to think.

"P'raps it was me that said most," she answered, "though I didn't think so then. She asked a question or so an' seemed to like to listen. I was tellin' her what a son you'd been to me, an' how happy I was an' how thankful I was."

"She's not one that says much," he said, without looking up from the glass on which his eyes had been fixed. "That's her way."