For Aunt Maria, she did as she had been doing throughout the contest--the only thing Aunt Maria ever had strength to do--she remained neutral and passive--cried and knitted--knitted and cried. So sat together these three women--as good women in their way, who meant well, and might have lived to be a comfort to one another. Yet, as it was, they only seemed to live for one another's mutual annoyance, irritation, and pain. A thunder-storm sometimes clears the air; and the passion of resistance into which Christian had been goaded apparently cooled the family atmosphere for a few days. But she herself felt only a dead-weight--a heavy chill--which lay on her heart long after the storm was spent. For the "gentleman" and his rude remark--if indeed he had made it, which she more than doubted, aware how Miss Gascoigne, like all people who can only see things from the stand-point of their own individuality, was somewhat given to exaggeration--Christian heeded him not. The world might talk as it chose; she knew her husband loved her, and that he had married her for love. And her boy loved her too, and needed her sorely, as he would need for many a long day yet. It would take a whole year, Dr. Anstruther said, before the injury to the lung was quite recovered, and all fear of Arthur's falling into continued ill health removed. Thus duties, sweet as strong, kept continually weaving themselves about her once forlorn life; binding her fast, it is true, but in such pleasant bonds that she never wished them broken. Every day she grew safer and happier and every day, as she looked on Dr. Grey's kind, good face, which familiarity was making almost beautiful, she felt thankful that--whether she loved it or only liked it--she should have it beside her all her days. Chapter 7. _"And do the hours slip fast or slow, And are ye sad or gay? And is your heart with your liege lord, lady, Or is it far away?_ _"The lady raised her calm, proud head, Though her tears fell one by one: 'Life counts not hours by joys or pangs, But just by duties done._ _"And when I lie in the green kirk-yard, With the mould upon my breast, Say not that "She did well or ill," Only, "She did her best."'"_ A day or two after this, Christian, returning from her daily walk, which was now brief enough, and never beyond the college precincts, met a strange face at the Lodge door--that is, a face not exactly strange; she seemed to have seen it before, but could not recollect how or where. Then she recalled it as that of a young daily governess, her predecessor at the Fergusons', who had left them "to better herself," as she said--and decidedly to the bettering of her pupils.