The Vicar and Mrs. Mercer were drinking tea with Mrs. Walter and Mollie. There had been a revival of late of the old intercourse between the Vicarage and Stone Cottage. Mollie had been very careful. After that conversation with her mother recorded a few chapters back, she had resolutely made up her mind that no call from outside should lure her away from her home whenever her mother would be likely to want her. With her generous young mind afire with tenderness and gratitude for all the love that had been given to her, for the years of hard and anxious toil that had gone to the making of this little home, in which at last she could make some return for her mother's devotion, she had set herself to put her above everything, and had never flinched from sacrificing her youthful desires to that end, while taking the utmost pains to hide the fact that there was any sacrifice at all. She had had her reward in the knowledge that her mother was happier than she had ever been since her widowhood, with an increased confidence in the security she had worked so hard to gain, and even some improvement in health. The poor woman, crushed more by the hard weight of difficult years than by any definite ailment, had seen her hold on her child loosening, and the friendship that had been so much to her becoming a source of strife and worry instead of refreshment. It had been easier to suffer under the thought of what should be coming to her than to make headway against it. She had no vital force left for further struggle, and to rise and take up the little duties of her day had often been too much for her while she had been under the weight of her fear. That fear was now removed, and a sense of safety and contentment had taken its place. She had been more active and capable during this early winter than at any such period since she had gained her freedom. Part of Mollie's deeply considered duty had been to recreate the intimacy with the Vicar and Mrs. Mercer, and by this time there had come to be no doubt that they occupied first place again in her attentions. Even Beatrix had had to give way to them, but had found Mollie so keenly delighted in her society when she did enjoy it, that, divining something of what was behind it all, she had made no difficulties, except to chaff her occasionally about her renewed devotion to Lord Salisbury.