You have had a very happy life, Lady Hatton?"
"Yes," she answered. "The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places."
"And you have beautiful children."
"Thank God! His blessing and peace came to me from the cradle. One day I found my Bible open at II Esdras, second chapter, and my eyes fell on the fifteenth verse: 'Mother, embrace thy children and bring them up with gladness.' I knew a poor woman who had ten children, and instead of complaining, she was proud and happy because she said God must have thought her a rare good mother to trust her with ten of His sons and daughters."
"I have not seen much of Sir John."
"He is on the yacht with the boys most of the time. They are visiting every day some one or other of the little storied towns of Fife. Sometimes it is black night when they get back to St. Andrews. But they have always had a good time even if it turned stormy. John finds, or makes, good come from every event. Greenwood—you remember Greenwood?"
"Oh, yes!"
"He used to say Sir John Hatton is the full measure of a man. He was very proud of Sir John's title, and never omitted, if it was possible to get it in, the M.P. after it. Greenwood died a year ago as he was sitting in his chair and picking out the hymns
to be sung at his funeral. They were all of a joyful character."
So we talked, and of course only the best in everyone came up for discussion, but then in fine healthy natures the best does generally come to the top—and this was undoubtedly one reason that conversation on any subject always drifted in some way or other to John Hatton. His faith in God, his love for his fellowmen, his noble charity, his inflexible justice, his domestic virtues, his confidence in himself, and his ready-handed use of all the means at his command—yea, even his beautiful manliness, what were they but the outcome of one thousand years of Christian faith transmitted through a royally religious ancestry?