Her face shone and she set down her work and came to him.
"'Twas nought; but 'tis lovely to know you marked it and was pleased," she said.
"I don't mark enough," he answered. "I'm that set on driving ahead, and making a bit of a splash, and getting up in the world for you--for you, Madge,--that I forget here and there. Don't gainsay me. Too well I know it in my leisure moments."
"You shan't say so. 'Tis all along of me being so small-minded and not looking on ahead like you do, but living in the stupid every-day things. I know they don't matter; and I know what you feel to me; and 'tis for me to see things with your eyes, not for you to see 'em with mine."
"'Tis for me to set higher store by the every-day things," he declared. "'Tis for me to value better the home you keep always sweet and ready for me; and the food you cook, and the hundred little odd worries and bothers many married men have to face, but me never. You don't bring no trouble to me; but you'm always ready and willing to hear my troubles. I can't expect you to understand when I talk about figures and such like. Such things ban't your part. But you'm always ready with your bright eyes to be glad and rejoice when good comes; and 'tis for me to be glad and rejoice in lesser things when you tell me about 'em. I don't let you know how clever I think you. And you always hold yourself so cheap that 'tis my duty to lift you up in your own conceit, for if you thought half so well of yourself as I think of you, you'd be the proudest woman in England, Madge."
She sat on his lap and put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
"'Tis like life to me to hear you say such things," she answered. "Though too well I know how little I deserve 'em. I wish I was a better, cleverer sort to lend a hand with high matters like figures and work and sheep. But I'm only useful here."
"Us will each stick to our own share of the load," he said. "We'm both doing our part pretty well, I believe; and so long as you never forget that I mark your cleverness and love you better every day of your life, the rest don't matter. I've been a thought too buried in my own hopes of late, and I own it and I'm sorry for it. But my eyes was opened half an hour agone, and I want you to forgive me, Madge. 'Twas only seeming, mind you; but I doubt it looked real and it's made you down-daunted, as well it may have; and I'm truly sorry for it."
"You've a deal more to forgive than me. Many men would fling it in my face every day of my life as I'd brought 'em no family."
"I'm not that sort, and I'm hopeful in that matter as in every other. Put that out of your mind, same as I do. Man plants, but God gives the increase. I've found out--all my life so far--that, if we do our part, He's very willing to do His. And if He holds back--that's His business and not for His creatures to fall foul of. Who knows best?"