, far less
repay my disparaging remarks with usury, which she might very well have
done, and would have done a few days before. I could not help seeing,
too, that she had been taking pains to make the room look tidier than
usual. My supper was ready for me, my slippers set by the fender, and
the arm-chair drawn up near the fire. I did not choose to make any
remark on this at the time; indeed, I got all the more cross, because I
was annoyed by the sense of my own injustice in being angry with her.
So poor Kate had but a sad time of it that night.

"However, I had made a note in my mind of what I had seen, and I was
curious to mark if this change in domestic matters would continue. To
my surprise, and, I am ashamed to say, not altogether to my
gratification, I found that it did continue. I was suspicious as to the
motive and reason for this change, and therefore not satisfied. So I
took the improvement in my poor wife's temper and conduct very surlily;
the real fact being, I now believe, that I was inwardly vexed by being
forced to feel that she was showing by her behaviour to me her
superiority to myself. But the change still continued, and I could
detect no unworthy motive for it; so at last Kate's loving ways and
patient forbearance got the victory, and then I began to look around for
the cause of this transformation. What could it have been that had made
my wife so different, and my home so different?

"While I now freely confessed to her my pleasure at the improvement, and
endeavoured to repay her loving attentions by coming home regularly in
good time and sober, I forbore to question her as to what had made such
a difference in her, and she was evidently anxious to avoid the subject.
But I was resolved to find out how this new state of things had come
about, and an opportunity for doing so soon presented itself. One
evening there was a break-down at the mill, and I returned home earlier
than usual. I was getting near the house, when I heard my wife singing,
and the tune was clearly a hymn tune. The secret was discovered now. I
took off my boots, and crept slowly up to the door. The singing had
stopped, and all was quiet. Then I heard Kate's voice gently reading
out loud to herself, and the words she read, though I could not catch
them distinctly, were manifestly not those of any book of science or
amusement: I could tell that by the seriousness of the tone of her
voice. The conviction then came stron