and his books and papers were scattered about with a happy confidence that no hands but his own would touch them. In the evening he generally sat in the living-place with his wife; he liked its gauntness, the big fireplace, the old oak table, the comfortable chairs, and the heavy door that in the summer-time stood wide open and let in, from the Dutch garden beyond the porch, the scent of flowers, the stir of leaves, and the rustling sound from the tall trees behind. In the winter there was the crackle of the beech logs, the flickering of the candles in the double candlesticks with japanned shades, and the long, deep shadows on the walls. It was all old-world-like and peaceful. He wondered that he had ever endured the hurry and noise of towns. In the first year he used to read to his wife--Scott and Kingsley and other authors that he thought might interest her. She was always appreciative, and from her pure-hearted outlook even gave some criticism that was worth hearing, though she never became cultured in any sense. But simple though she remained, Gerald Vincent was never ashamed of her, and she never bored him. He felt that daily life, or such portion of it as he spent with her, was to his soul pretty much what a cool bath was to his body. After a time there was Margaret, a babe with blue eyes and little double fists, and then, seeing that the child took up much of its mother's time and thought, he drew back into the isolation of the best parlor without fear of being thought neglectful.

The Petersfield relations kept Hannah with them till she was sixteen. Then, since she had left school, and her hair, that always looked scanty on the temples, was done up into a knot behind, and one of her eye-teeth had decayed, they thought it well to send her back to the farm. But old Mr. Barton had not talked to her in vain, and she went home with a smothered resentment in her heart that had a touch of horror in it towards the stranger, and a shrinking she could never overcome towards his child. She kept herself well in hand, it is true, and, except that he could never get behind her reserve and somewhat snappy manner, she and Mr. Vincent got on pretty well together, seeing that they inhabited the same house. She developed into a thrifty young woman with a distinct capacity for that state of life in which she found herself, and with dissent so strong within her that, within a month of her going back to Woodside Farm for good, she had begun secretly to store such little sums as she could honestly consider her own in order some day to build a chapel at Chidhurst. Meanwhile, she contented herself with the somewhat dreary service at the little church on the hill.

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