sm
began, mother?"

"To be sure, it was. It began in the lanes and streets and in the barns
and kitchens of old manor houses like Hatton Hall. Your
great-grandfather used to say it was like a loud cry at midnight
startling the sleepy world."

"It was the most picturesque domestic event of last century, as well as
a religious----"

"Picturesque! I never thought of Methodism in that way, John; but I'll
tell thee, it took the very heart of Yorkshire and set it to song and
prayer--and cotton-spinning. It stopped a deal of gambling and racing
and dog-and cock-fighting, and chapels and mills grew together all over
the length and breadth of Yorkshire. They did that, and all that! I've
heard my father say so many a time. Make haste now, my lad, dinner will
spoil if tha keeps it waiting. Methodism is like enough to stand
forever."

In this conversation Mrs. Hatton had dropped easily and naturally into
the Yorkshire speech, as all Yorkshire people do when heart-touched. For
Yorkshire is neither a dialect nor a patois; it is the pure English of
a thousand years ago, the English Chaucer spoke, and which Yorkshire has
preserved in all its purity--especially about the Craven district. Mrs.
Hatton had gone through finishing schools of the latest fashion and she
made no trips in her usual social conversation, unless deeply moved, but
if a little Yorkshire was a fault, it was a very general one, and there
was no interesting conversation without such lapses into English pure
and undefiled and often startlingly picturesque and to the point.

When John had left her she took her herbs to the still room, laid them
in their places, and removed the large white linen apron which covered
her from head to feet. Then she stood beautifully gowned in black satin
with fine thread-lace cuffs turned back nearly to the elbows and a large
collar of the same lace fastened at the throat with a brooch of gold and
diamonds. Her black hair was fashionably dressed and finished with a
small cap of lace and pink ribbon, and her feet shod in black satin
sandals--a splendid woman of fifty-three years old, showing every grace
at its finest with as yet no sign of decay in any of them.

John gave her his arm proudly, but he noticed that her face clouded
before she was seated. She would not ask as to Harry's whereabouts, but
she missed his presence, and anger grew in her heart. "He is with that
girl," she thought, and she was sick with anxiety and inquietude. T