“She did not mean it,” said Luke, sadly, as he carefully folded and put away the letter. “She knows me better in her heart.”
Then time went on, till a year had passed. Luke had not been near Lawford, for the place, in spite of its being the home of his birth, was too full of sad memories to induce him to go down. Besides, there was the fact that Sage Mallow had, in defiance of looks askance from those who had known her in her earlier days, permanently taken up her residence there.
“I’d like to hear any one say a slighting word to thee, my bairn,” said Portlock, fiercely. “It’s no fault of thine that thy husband got into trouble. I’d live here, if it was only out of defiance to the kind-hearted Christians, as they call themselves, who slight thee.”
So Sage remained a fixture at the farm, settling down quite into her former life, but no longer with the light elasticity of step, and the rooms no more echoed with the ring of her musical voice. Time had given her an older and a sadder look, but her features had grown refined, and there was a ladylike mien in every movement that made her aunt gaze upon her with a kind of awe.
“Let her come back to the old nest again, mother,” said Portlock. “There’s room enough for the lass, and as for the little ones—My word, mother, it’s almost like being grandfather and granny.”
Many a heartache had Sage had about her dependent position, and the heavy losses that had occurred to her uncle in the money she and her husband had had; but Portlock, in his bluff way, made light of it.
“I dare say I can make some more, my bairn, and it will do for these two young tyrants. Hang me, what a slave they do make of me, to be sure!”
It was the faint wintry sunshine of Sage Mallow’s life to see the newly-born love of the old people for her children, whom they idolised, and great was the jealousy of Rue whenever she came across to Kilby. But it was no wonder, for they were as attractive in appearance as they were pretty in their ways. One was always out in the gig with the Churchwarden, while the other was seriously devoting herself to domestic duties and hindering Mrs Portlock, who bore the infliction with huge delight.
“I never saw such bairns,” cried the old lady.
“Nor anybody else,” said Portlock, proudly. “Let’s see, mother, there’s a year gone by out of the fourteen. Bless my soul, I wish it had been twenty-one instead.”