"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Chester; "no remembrance of the mother who nursed and suckled her! When children forget that, it's time that the world should come to an end."
"I judge from myself," said Seth. "If I'd have lost my mother, and been taken from her when I was two years old, I should have had no knowledge or remembrance of her."
"Knowledge and remembrance aren't close relations," observed Mrs. Chester with a wise shake of her head. "I can remember some things of which I've no knowledge. I can remember an orange I had given me when I was a little one and was dying as they supposed. I can see myself eating that orange, but I don't know how it came into my hands, or who give it to me, and nothing else about it except that I was eating it." Mrs. Chester looked with an air of triumph at Seth, as though she had, unexpectedly to herself--as was the case--established a difficult proposition somewhat neatly. "But that's not the way with everybody, perhaps. You and the Duchess---- I do believe she grows prettier than ever! I thought she was the most lovely babe I'd ever set eyes on, and I don't mind telling you now that I felt bad when I saw how beautiful she was, and how different my dear Sally looked. But Sally's improving, Mr. Dumbrick."
"That she is, Mrs. Chester. I shouldn't wonder if she grows up quite pretty. She only wants filling out, but she's that active she doesn't give time for the flesh to settle on her bones. I'll tell you when she looked so beautiful in my eyes that I felt she couldn't be improved upon. It was when I used to come down into the cellar softly without her knowing, and saw her with her arms round the Duchess's neck, feeding her, maybe, or singing to her--she's got a nice voice, has Sally. I don't want ever to see a face prettier-or better than Sally's face looked then."
This was very sweet in Mrs. Chester's ears, and she said as she pressed his hand:
"I'm a fortunate woman, with all my troubles."
"We are all of us fortunate," said Seth philosophically, "in spite of worry and vexation, if we'd only look on it in the right light. But for all that, the world's wrong."
"In what way, Mr. Dumbrick?"
"We haven't time to talk of it," replied Seth, skilfully evading the knotty points involved in his assertion; "it'd take me a week. You were saying a little while ago about me and the Duchess, when you broke off, or rather you were going to say something about the Duchess remembering and me not remembering."
"Only that we're not all alike. You're a man as has seen trouble----"