Between four and five years passed, Jack making a home for his mother and the children, while Jessie lived with Miss Perkins, did dressmaking, and laid by a nice sum of money.
By that time the Groates children were getting old enough to begin to work for themselves; Jack himself was in a good enough position under Mr. Ward to have been for two years laying something by out of his earnings; and Mrs. Groates was known far and wide as one of the most useful of little women in any kind of emergency, as to work or cooking or health, so that really she was seldom at home for a month at a time.
Under these circumstances it was thought reasonable that Jack and Jessie should become man and wife. Mrs. Groates wanted to live apart, but neither Jack nor Jessie would hear of this.
A larger cottage was taken, and Mrs. Groates and her youngest girl had their home in it; Mrs. Groates still going out often to work in homes round about. The elder children also had a general welcome, coming and going as need arose; so that Jack's house became a kind of family home to them all; and Jessie turned out, not only a first-rate dressmaker, but also a notable housekeeper, and a loving daughter to her husband's mother.
And neither of them was any the worse for a few years of patient waiting, before having exactly what he or she wanted.
THE END