"A dear old-fashioned one like this?" she said, "Oh! then we will call it 'The Haven!'"
"It is not built yet," Gilbert said; "we must remember all that the children will want, education—"
"And accomplishments," she added, laughing. "Lettice, Lota, and little baby Joy must not grow up 'little rustics.'"
Joyce laughed, just her old, sweet, silvery laugh.
"It answered my purpose to be a little rustic, after all, as I took your fancy in my lilac cotton gown and white apron."
He put his arm round her as they walked, and pressed her close.
"They might be lovers of yesterday," Susan Priday thought, as she watched them from the nursery windows, "instead of having been married seven years. Such love must make a poor man rich and a rich man happy, and may God bless them both. The mistress grows prettier every day."
No one ever sounded Susan Priday's depth of gratitude; she was not a demonstrative person, and the other servants, as might be expected, were a little jealous of her, and sometimes she had dark hints to bear "of the daughter of bad folks being lucky," and muttered words of self-congratulation that their fathers had not been rioters and died in "'ospital beds."
But all these shafts were powerless to disturb Susan's peace, and baby Joy heard many a soliloquy which reached no other ears than hers.
"Yes," she was saying, as she swayed Joy gently to and fro; "they look like lovers of yesterday. The master is aged since his illness, and stoops a bit, but the mistress is younger than ever."