The Measure of a Man | Page 9

keep a brave and cheerful heart. I will do all that is
possible to satisfy Harry."
"I can leave him safely with God and his brother. And tomorrow I can
now look after the apricot-preserving. Barker told me the fruit was all
ready today, but I could not frame myself to see it properly done, but
tomorrow it will be different." Then because she wanted to reward John
for his patience, and knowing well what subject was close to his heart,
she remarked in a casual manner,
"Mrs. Harlow was here yesterday, and she said her apricots were safely

put away."
"Was Miss Harlow with her?"
"No. There was a tennis game at Lady Thirsk's. I suppose she was
there."
"Have you seen her lately?"
"She took tea with me last Wednesday. What a beauty she is! Such
color in her cheeks! It was like the apricots when the sun was on them.
Such shining black hair so wonderfully braided and coiled! Such
sparkling, flashing black eyes! Such a tall, splendid figure! Such a rosy
mouth! It seemed as if it was made for smiles and kisses."
"And she walks 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