"I dare be bound you find it lonely in the new home," said Mrs. Verstage. "Here, in an inn, there is plenty of life; but in the farm you are out of the world. How does the Broom-Squire treat you?"
She awaited an answer with anxiety, which she was unable to disguise.
After a pause Mehetabel replied, with heightened color, "Jonas is not unkind."
"You can't expect love-making every day," said the hostess. "It's the way of men to promise the sun, moon, and planets, till you are theirs, and after that, then poor women must be content to be given a spark off a fallen star. There was Jamaica Cheel runn'd away with his Betsy because he thought the law wouldn't let him have her; she was the wife of another, you know. Then he found she never had been proper married to the other chap, and when he discovered he was fast tied to Betsy he'd a run away from her only the law wouldn't let him. Jonas ain't beautiful and young, that I allow."
"I knew what he was when I married him," answered Mehetabel. "I cannot say I find him other than what I expected."
"But is he kind to you?"
"I said he was not unkind."
Mrs. Verstage looked questioningly at her adopted child. "I don't know," she said, with quivering lips. "I suppose I was right. I acted for the best. God knows I sought your happiness. Do not tell me that you are unhappy."
"Who is happy?" asked Mehetabel, and turned her eyes on the hostess, to read alarm and distress in her face. "Do not trouble yourself about me, mother. I knew what I was doing when I took Jonas. I had no expectation of finding the Punch-Bowl to be Paradise. It takes a girl some time to get settled into fresh quarters, and to feel comfortable among strangers. That is mainly my case. I was perhaps spoiled when here, you were so kind to me. I thank you, mother, that you have not forgotten me in your great joy at getting Iver home again."
"There was Thomasine French bought two penn'orth o' shrimps, and as her husband weren't at home thought to enjoy herself prodigious. But she came out red as a biled lobster. With the best intentions things don't always turn out as expected," said Mrs. Verstage, "and the irritation was like sting nettles and—wuss." Then, after a pause, "I don't know how it is, all my life I have wished to have Iver by me. He went away because he wanted to be a painter; he has come back, after many years, and is not all I desire. Now he is goyn away. I could endure that if I were sure he loved me. But I don't think he does. He cares more for his father, who sent him packin' than he does for me, who never crossed him. I don't understand him. He is not the same as he was."