“They are nothing of the kind.  Be ashamed of yourself, John Hatton.”

“You are right, mother.  My life and death are by the will of God, but I can say that my happiness or wretchedness is in Jane Harlow’s power.”

“Your happiness is in your own power.  Her ‘no’ might be a disappointment in hours you weren’t busy among your looms and cotton bales, or talking of discounts and the money market, but its echo would grow fainter every hour of your life, and then you would meet the other girl, whose ‘yes’ would put the ‘no’ forever out of your memory.”

“Well, mother, you have given me hope, and I have been comforted by you ‘as one whom his mother comforteth.’  If the dear girl is not to be won by Thirsk’s title and money, I will see what love can do.”

“I’ll tell you, John, what love can do”—­and she went to a handsome set of hanging book shelves containing the favorite volumes of Dissent belonging to John’s great-grandfather, Burnet, Taylor, Doddridge, Wesley, Milton, Watts, quaint biographies, and books of travel.  From them she took a well-used copy of Taylor’s “Holy Living and Dying,” and opening it as one familiar with every page, said,

“Listen, John, learn what Love can do.

“Love solves where learning perplexes.  Love attracts the best in every one, for it gives the best, Love redeemeth, Love lifts up, Love enlightens, Love hath everlasting remembrance, Love advances the Soul, Love is a ransom, and the tears thereof are a prayer.  Love is life.  So much Love, so much Life.  Oh, little Soul, if rich in Love, thou art mighty.”

“My dear mother, thank you.  You are best of all mothers.  God bless you.”

“Your father, John, was a man of few words, as you know.  He copied that passage out of this very book, and he wrote after it, ’Martha Booth, I love you.  If you can love me, I will be at the chapel door after tonight’s service, then put your hand in mine, and I will hope to give you hand and heart and home as long as I live.’  And for years he kept his word, John—­he did that!”

“Father always kept his word.  If he but once said a thing, no power on earth could make him unsay it.  He was a handsome, well-built man.”

“Well, then, what are you thinking of?”

“I was thinking that Lord Thirsk is, by the majority of women, considered handsome.”

“What kind of women have that idea?”

“Why, mother, I don’t exactly know.  If I go into my tailor’s, I am told about his elegant figure, if into my shoemaker’s, I hear of his small feet, if to Baylor’s glove counter, some girl fitting my number seven will smilingly inform me that Lord Thirsk wears number four.  And if you see him walking or driving, he always has some pretty woman at his side.”

“What by all that?  His feet are fit for nothing but dancing.  He could not take thy long swinging steps for a twenty-mile walk; he couldn’t take them for a dozen yards.  His hands may be small enough, and white enough, and ringed enough for a lady, but he can’t make a penny’s worth with them.  I’ve heard it said that if he goes to stay all night with a friend he has to take his valet with him—­can’t dress himself, I suppose.”