Margery nodded.
"Brings religion into everything," she answered. "A wonderful mother she's been. You mustn't mind my seeing a lot of her after we're married, Jacob. The little that's good in me I owe to her."
"You're frightened of her?"
Margery considered this.
"I was—we all were. A sort of love we'd got that didn't cast out fear exactly. But I'm not frightened of her now. I trust her so in every thing. Where there's perfect trust, there didn't ought to be fear."
"I feel a very great respect of her, but she's hard," declared Jacob.
"I suppose she is to you," admitted Margery, "and I'll tell you why she seems so. 'Tis her great goodness and high religion. Very few can rise to it; and to everyday people mother does seem hard; but it's only because most are soft. There's a bit of jealousy also. Because even good people know they can't be as good as she is all round."
Jacob differed and held Mrs. Huxam to be narrow and self-righteous; but he did not say so.
"Don't you fear I shall quarrel with her," he said. "She's the mother of my wife to be, and I'll be a very good son to her if she lets me alone."
"She lets everybody alone when she can't help them," answered Margery. "She pours her whole thoughts and all her time into religion and the shop. It was a grief to her that I didn't go into the shop; and, looking back, I always wonder how I didn't; but I was such a one for out of doors, and father supported me, and doctor told her I'd be a stronger girl if I lived in the air. Till I was fifteen I was a poor, pinnikin thing."