ly to speak
straightforward words."

"Then you have your work set, John. Whether you can do it or not, is a
different thing. I don't want you to marry Jane Harlow, but as you have
set your heart on her, I have resolved to make the most of her strong
points and the least of her weak ones. You had better do the same."

There was silence for a few moments, then John asked, "Was that all,
mother?"

"We had more to say, but it was of a personal nature--I don't think it
concerns you at present."

"Nay, but it does, mother. Everything connected with Jane concerns me."

Mrs. Hatton appeared reluctant to speak, but John's anxiety was so
evident, she answered, "Well, then, it was about my children."

"What about them?"

"She said she had heard her mother speak of my 'large family' and yet
she had never seen any of them but Henry and yourself. She wondered if
her mother had been mistaken. And I said, 'Nay, your mother told the
truth, thank God!'

"'You see,' she continued, 'I was at school until a year ago, and our
families were not at all intimate.' I said, 'Not at all. Your father was
a proud man, Miss Harlow, and he would not notice a cotton-spinner on
terms of social equality. And Stephen Hatton thought himself as good as
the best man near him. So he was. And no worse for the mill. It kept up
the Hall, so it did.' She said I was right, and would I tell her about
my children."

"I hope you did, mother. I do hope you did."

"Why not? I am proud of them all, living or dead--here or _there_. So I
said, 'Well, Miss Harlow, John is not my firstborn. There was a lovely
little girl, who went back to God before she was quite a year old.
People said I ought to think it a great honor to give my first child to
God, but it was a great grief to me. Soon after her death John was born,
and after John came Clara Ann. She married before she was eighteen, a
captain of artillery in the army, and she has ever since been with him
in India, Africa, or elsewhere. Then I had Stephen, who is now a
well-known Manchester warehouse man and seldom gets away from his
business. Then Paul was given to me. He is a good boy, and a fine
sailor. His ship is the _Ajax_, a first-class line of battleship. I see
him now and then and get a letter from every port he touches. Then came
Harry, who served an apprenticeship with his father, but never liked the
mill; and at last, the sweetest gift of all God's gifts, twin daughters,
called Dora and Edith. They