“You make my shirts!” exclaimed Vincent with feeling; “well, I shall like them better than any that ever I wore. I’m growing quite proud, you see, now that I’ve such a lady for my needlewoman!”
“And I quite grand,” replied Clemence, with a smile, “when I’ve such a gentleman for my carpenter!”
With such light conversation the weary, heart-stricken wife strove to beguile the first evening in Willow Cottage. Whatever her own secret sorrows might be, she was resolved that they should not sadden her intercourse with Vincent. It was a pleasure to her to see the brave cheerfulness with which he was preparing to do battle with difficulties. With his bright eyes and ringing laugh, Vincent was to his step-mother the impersonification of Hope. And never had Clemence with more fervent thankfulness pronounced the grace after meals, than in that small, cold, and comfortless cottage, for which she had exchanged all the luxuries of her splendid mansion. She had resigned those luxuries for the dearer one of eating her bread in peace, and with a quiet mind, conscious of wronging none; and sweeter, oh! how much sweeter, would be the poorest crust partaken of thus, than all the dainties of a board at which it were mockery to ask a blessing!
CHAPTER XXIII
COTTAGE LIFE.
Vincent was much too weary that night to notice whether his bed were soft, and slept in luxurious repose till the morning light awoke him. Dressing quickly, he entered the little parlour where Clemence was preparing the breakfast. She greeted him with a cheerful smile. “We have not the fatigue of stairs here,” she observed.
“And we’ve the advantage of hearing at one end of the house everything that passes at the other,” said Vincent;—“while I was dressing I did not lose a note of the song that Martha was singing in the kitchen. I think that there was an earthquake last night, or else I dreamed that I felt one.”
“It was a train passing,” said Clemence; “it was too dark yesterday when we arrived for us to notice how close to our house the line runs.”
“So half-a-dozen times a day we’ll have the earthquake of Lisbon, without paying our shilling—so much to treat the ear; and as for the eye—is there anything in the Royal Academy brighter than that famous patch-work table-cover, which I see displayed in all its glory? I’m sure that you are determined to make our cottage gay with every colour of the rainbow!”