"No, but seriously?" she persisted, fixing her eyes on him almost anxiously.
"Well then, yes. I think you're perceptibly more human," he acknowledged, laughing still.
A more serious description of the change that Arthur found in Judith might not have gone so near the mark. Though her judgment preserved the sanity which he admired—without emulation—and her manner the cool satiric touch which he generally relished and sometimes resented, stress of circumstances had broken down her detachment and forced her out of her pose of critical but scarcely concerned spectator. She had become, willy-nilly, involved in the family fortunes; she could no longer merely look on, and smile, or deride; she had been forced to think, to act, and to feel—to take a part, to shoulder her share of the load. The latent faculties of her nature, ripe to spring into full womanhood, had answered to the call with instinctive readiness. So soon as there was work for her courage, her love and sympathy, she had them to give, and the more she gave the greater grew her store. Sustaining Godfrey, mothering Margaret, she had experienced something of the stirring and development of feeling which comes with marriage and motherhood. Through disaster and consolation, in ruin and the need to re-build, she had been forced to seek the rich things of her heart and had found abundance.
Thus she seemed 'perceptibly more human,' the change of heart revealing itself not only in her dealings with others but as surely, though more subtly, in herself. She opened out in a new spontaneity of feeling; she was easier to approach in confidence, more ready to appreciate and to share the joys of the spirit. Even in her bearing and looks there might be discerned a new alacrity, a new brightness of the eyes. Her mirth was heartier and more kindly; her mockery had lost its bitterness without losing its flavour.
Some such new, or revised, impression of her had formed itself in Arthur's mind and found voice now in his bantering speech. His gaze rested on her in pleasure as he added, "But you needn't carry it too far. Nobody wants you to become a gusher."
"Heaven forbid!" she murmured. "I really think I'm safe from that. I've too much native malice about me—and it will out!"
"Perpetual founts of warm emotion—geysers! Terrible people!"
"Oh, even you're hardly as bad as that!"
"They debase the emotional currency," said Arthur, with a sudden and violent change of metaphor.
On Christmas Day hard weather set in, with a keen frost. A few days of it promised skating on the low-lying meadows, now under flood. Full of hope and joyful anticipation, Arthur telegraphed for his skates.