* * * * *
For the first half of every holiday at school John came back to his mother at Yarningdale. The remainder of his time he spent in Somerset. How closely she watched him it is not difficult to suppose. Every term that passed brought him to her again with something she had taught him gone, with something they had taught him in its place.
To the outward observer, he was the same John. All his love he gave her, teasing her with it as he grew older, playing the lover to her shyness when she found him turning from boy to man.
They spoke little of Liddiard or the life in Somerset for the first year. All invitations to Wenlock Hall though freely offered, she refused.
"I appreciate your wife's generosity of wish to meet me; don't think me seeking to make difficulties; really I am trying to avoid them," she wrote.
In fact it was that Yarningdale was her home and still, pursuant of her purpose, she would not allow John to associate her in his mind with any other place. Within a year they had made him feel the substance of his inheritance. He spoke of Wenlock Hall, knowing it would be his. Inevitably he made comparisons between their lives and hers, but it was not until after his first term at Oxford that openly he questioned her wisdom in staying on the farm.
"They both want you down there, Mater, at Wenlock Hall. And after all, this is a poky little place, isn't it? Of course the farm's not bad, but it's a bit ramshackle and sometimes I hate to think of you still milking the cows in those dingy old stalls. We've got lovely sheds at Wenlock Hall, asphalt floor, beautifully drained, plenty of light and as clean as a new pin."
She looked at him steadily.
"For nearly eighteen years, John, I've been milking the cows in those stalls. Until two weeks before you were born, I sat there milking them. As soon as I was well again I went back. You've got your little private chapel at Wenlock Hall. Those stalls are my chapel. That little window hung with cobwebs through which I've seen the sunset--oh, so many times, I don't want any more wonderful an altar than that. In those stalls I've had thoughts no light through stained glass windows could ever have brought to me. Do you remember sitting beside me there while I milked, oh, heaps of times, but one time particularly when you asked me about God?"
He thought an instant and then burst into shouts of laughter.