The Measure of a Man | Page 9

like a queen, mother!"
"She does that."
"And she is so bright and independent!"
"Well, John, she is. There's no denying it."
"She is finely educated and also related to the best Yorkshire families. Could I marry any better woman, mother?"
"Well, John, as a rule men don't approve of poor wives, but Miss Jane Harlow is a fortune in herself."
"Two months ago I heard that Lord Thirsk was very much in love with her. I saw him with her very often. I was very unhappy, but I could not interfere, you know, could I?"
"So you went off to sea, and left mother and Harry and your business to anybody's care. It wasn't like you, John."
"No, it was not. I wanted you, mother, a dozen times a day, and I was half-afraid to come back to you, lest I should find Miss Jane married or at least engaged."
"She is neither one nor the other, or I am much mistaken. Whatever are you afraid of? Jane Harlow is only a woman beautiful and up to date, she is not a 'goddess excellently fair' like the woman you are always singing about, not she! I'm sure I often wonder where she got her beauty and high spirit. Her father was just a proud hanger-on to his rich relations; he lived and died fighting his wants and his debts. Her mother is very near as badly off--a poor, wuttering, little creature, always fearing and trembling for the day she never saw."
"Perhaps this poverty and dependence may make her marry Lord Thirsk. He is rich enough to get the girl he wants."
"His money would not buy Jane, if she did not like him; and she doesn't like him."
"How do you know that, mother?"
"I asked her. While we were drinking our tea, I asked her if she were going to make herself Lady Thirsk. She made fun of him. She mocked the very idea. She said he had no chin worth speaking of and no back to his head and so not a grain of forthput in him of any kind. 'Why, he can't play a game of tennis,' she said, 'and when he loses it he nearly cries, and what do you think, Mrs. Hatton, of a lover like that?' Those were her words, John."
"And you believe she was in earnest?"
"Yes, I do. Jane is too proud and too brave a girl to lie--unless----"
"Unless what, mother?"
"It was to her interest."
"Tell me all she said. Her words are life or death to me."
"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