wn with dust and very tired, but
radiantly happy: it was a great event in little Polly's life, this
homecoming, and coming, too, strong and well. The house was a lively
place that afternoon: Polly had so much to tell that she sat holding
her bonnet for over an hour, quite unable to get as far as the bedroom;
and even Long Jim's mouth went up at the corners instead of down; for
Polly had contrived to bring back a little gift for every one. And in
presenting these, she found out more of what people were thinking and
feeling than her husband had done in all the eight weeks of her absence.

Mahony was loath to damp her pleasure straightway; he bided his time.
He could not know that Polly also had been laying plans, and that she
watched anxiously for the right moment to unfold them.

The morning after her return, she got a lift in the baker's cart and
drove out to inspect John's children. What she saw and heard on this
visit was disquieting. The children had run wild, were grown dirty,
sly, untruthful. Especially the boy.--"A young Satan, and that's a
fact, Mrs. Mahony! What he needs is a man's hand over him, and a good
hidin' six days outer seven."

It was not alone little Johnny's misconduct, however, that made Polly
break silence. An incident occurred that touched her still more nearly.

Husband and wife sat snug and quiet as in the early days of their
marriage. Autumn had come round and a fire burnt in the stove, before
which Pompey snorted in his dreams. But, for all the cosy tranquillity,
Polly was not happy; and time and again she moistened and bit at the
tip of her thread, before pointing it through her needle. For the book
open before Richard, in which he was making notes as he read, was--the
Bible. Bending over him to drop a kiss on the top of his head, Polly
had been staggered by what she saw. Opposite the third verse of the
first chapter of Genesis: "And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light," he had written: "Three days before the sun!" Her heart
seemed to shrivel, to grow small in her breast, at the thought of her
husband being guilty of such impiety. Ceasing her pretence at sewing,
she walked out of the house into the yard. Standing there under the
stars she said aloud, as if some one, THE One, could hear her: "He
doesn't mean to do wrong.... I KNOW he doesn't!" But when she
re-entered the room he was still at it. His beautiful writing, reduced
to its tiniest, wound round the narrow margins.