On tip-toe, Mr. Jones softly withdrew, and stole downstairs.
"I'd have kissed her," he whispered to Rachel, as she opened the door for him, "but it might have woke her out of that sweet sleep."
And away he went, happy to have purchased, by a ten miles walk after a day's hard labour, that look at his sleeping child.
"Oh, Lord! how beautiful is the love Thou hast put into the hearts of Thy creature!" thought Rachel Gray; and though it had not been her lot to win that love, the thought was to her so sweet and so lovely, that she bore without repining her expected scolding.
"Mrs. Gray had never heard of such a think—never."
CHAPTER V.
The rich man has his intellect, and its pleasures; he has his books, his studies, his club, his lectures, his excursions; he has foreign lands, splendid cities, galleries, museums, ancient and modern art: the poor man has his child, solitary delight of his hard tasked life, only solace of his cheerless home.
Richard Jones had but that one child, that peevish, sickly, fretful little daughter; but she was his all. He was twenty-one, when the grocer in whose shop his youth had been spent, died a bankrupt, leaving one child, a daughter, a pale, sickly young creature of seventeen, called Mary Smith.
Richard Jones had veneration large. He had always felt for this young lady an awful degree of respect, quite sufficient of itself to preclude love, had he been one to know this beautiful feeling by more than hearsay —which he was not. Indeed, he never could or would have thought of Mary Smith as something less than a goddess, if, calling at the house of the relative to whom she had gone, and finding her in tears, and, on her own confession, very miserable, he had not felt moved to offer himself, most hesitatingly, poor fellow I for her acceptance.
Miss Smith gave gracious consent. They were married, and lived most happily together. Poor little Mary's temper was none of the best; but Richard made every allowance: "Breaking down of the business—other's death—having to marry a poor fellow like him, &c." In short, he proved the most humble and devoted of husbands, toiled like a slave to keep his wife like a lady, and never forgot the honour she had conferred upon him; to this honour Mrs. Jones added, after three years, by presenting him with a sickly baby, which, to its mother's name of Mary, proudly added that of its maternal grandfather Smith.