"Have you been happy with me, my poor Eli?"
"Why, you know I have. Friends I have known, but none like thee. Buss me, wife!"
"A heart to share joy and grief with is a great comfort to man or woman. Isn't it, Eli?"
"It is so, my lass."
'It doth joy double,
And halveth trouble,'
runs the byword. And so I have found it, sweetheart. Ah! here comes the young fool."
Catherine trembled and held her husband's hand tight. The moon was bright, but they were in the shadow of some trees, and their son did not see them. He came singing in the moonlight, and his face shining.