"He does. And how can he help it—not knowing? But I am going to try to be patient. I will ask God to help me. And some day—some day the truth will come out."
"Does God love you, Lettice?"
Lettice burst into fresh tears.
"I don't know what I should do, if I did not feel sure of that," she whispered.
"Then I'll ask Him to make you happy. Shall I? And I'll say my prayers every day, all the time you are away: and I really will try to be a good boy, Lettice."
"So Lettice comes to-day," said Mr. Valentine, over his breakfast on the following Friday. "She was a nice little girl, once upon a time, but girls do alter so . . . I wonder if Londoners call this a fresh egg? I don't! Got another? . . . Well, this is a dull house to come to: but young things like London bustle. That's the difference between them and me. I'm too old for uprooting, and getting used to a new soil."
"It takes time," his gentle wife said. "You've always been used to the country, you see."
"And to fresh eggs! And to country ways. One of which is not lying late in bed," grunted Mr. Valentine. "Where's Prue gone? And what is Nan after?"
"Prue's only gone to see if Nan has overslept herself."
"Shouldn't do it a second time, if I'd the management of her!—" with a reasonable appreciation of his own power in the household as compared with his wife's.