"She has forgotten us quite," said the ailing old woman. "The distance is not great. She might come, especially as her husband keeps a horse and chaise; and what are ten miles after all? I have often walked double that in my young days to see a friend, much more a mother and sister. Well, I shall not be here long,--I feel that. The day of my release will be welcome to me, and she will be sorry when I am gone that she neglected to come and see me." Now, though Dorothy Grimshawe, in her nervous, querulous state, grumbled over the absence of her daughter, she was never so dear to the heart of her faulty child as at the very time she complained of her neglect. Sophy Cotton never knew the real value of a mother's love until she felt upon her own shoulders the cares and responsibilities of a house. She longed intensely to see her and Mary again, as the nice presents of butter, ham, and eggs that she was constantly sending to ---- might have testified for her; but there were painful reasons that made a meeting with her mother and sister everything but desirable to the young wife. She was changed since they parted. Her marriage had been contrary to their wishes. If she did not go over to ---- in the chaise, she went nowhere else; never did the most loving bride keep more closely at home. Once Mrs. Grimshawe asked of her daughter's messenger, a rough clodhopper, whom she had summoned to her bed-side in order to gratify her curiosity and satisfy her doubts, the reason of Mrs. Cotton's long silence--"Was she well?" "Yes; but she had lost her rosy cheeks, and was not so blithe as when she first came to the porched-house." "Did her husband treat her ill?" "Na, na; he petted her like a spoilt child; yet she never seemed happy, or contented like." "What made her unhappy then?" "He could na just tell--women were queer creturs. Mayhap it was being an old man's wife that fretted her, and that was but natural, seeing that a pretty young thing like her might have got a husband nearer her own age, which, for sartain, would ha' been more to her taste." "Was she likely to have any family?" "No signs o' the like. It had na pleased the Lord to multiply Noah's seed upon the earth." "Was he stingy?" "Na, na; they had allers plenty to eat. He was a kind measter, an' good pay. There was only their two selves, and Mrs. Cotton was dressed like a lady, and had everything brave and new about her; but she looked mortal pale and thin, an' he b'lieved that she was in the consumption." The man went his way, and the old woman talked to Mary about her daughter half the night. "She was always discontented with her lot," she remarked, "when single. Change of circumstances seldom changed the disposition. Perhaps it was Sophy's own fault that she was not happy."