"I've been thinking," he said, awkwardly, "that it would be in your line to give summat now and then to some o' the poor lot that's so thick here. There's plenty on 'em, an' p'r'aps it wouldn't be a bad thing. There's not many that's fond of givin'. Let's set the gentry a fashion."
"Jem!" she said. "My dear! there isn't nothin' that would make me no happier—nothin' in the world."
"It won't do overmuch good, may be," he returned. "More than half on 'em don't deserve it, but give it to 'em if you've a fancy for it. I don't grudge it."
There were tears of joy in her eyes. She took his hand and held it, fondling it.
"I might have knowed it," she said, "an' I don't deserve it for holdin' back an' feelin' a bit timid, as I have done. I've thought of it again and again, when I've been a trifle lonesome with you away. There's many a poor woman as is hard-worked that I might help, and children too, may be, me bein' so fond of 'em."
She drew nearer still and laid her hand on his arm.
"I always was fond of 'em," she said, "always—an' I've thought that, sometimes, my dear, there might be little things here as I might help to care for, an' as would be fond of me.
"If there was children," she went on, "I should get used to it quick. They'd take away the—the bigness, an' make me forget it."
But he did not answer nor look at her, though she felt his arm tremble.
"I think they'd be fond of me," she said, "them an'—an' her too, whomsoever she might be. She'd be a lady, Jem, but she wouldn't mind my ways, I dare say, an' I'd do my best with all my heart. I'd welcome her, an' give up my place here to her, joyful. It's a place fitter for a lady such as she would be—God bless her!—than for me." And she patted his sleeve and bent her face that she might kiss his hand.