This was Sunday: a day indeed of rest and gladness. Other days she had to be up and about early to get the little lads their breakfast; and to make them ready for school; and to set her husband by the fire. Then she herself was off with the dawn, and sometimes before, to work all day in the fields. Her rough dress was stained earth colour from head to foot; a sack was tied round the skirts which were tucked well up out of the way. A big sun-bonnet protected her more often from the bleak winds and bitter rains than from the sun. From dawn till dusk she worked for sixpence a day; and then came home thanking God right heartily for the three shillings a week. And on that Jennifer managed to feed and clothe her household, and to pay the rent and to keep up her good looks. The fact is, Jennifer was as we have said, a philosopher, and had made a great discovery. It was certainly worthy to be set alongside of the most famous inventions; and like many of them it had the one great defect--so few knew how to use it. Jennifer had little, it is true. She was, so to speak, but a moulting bird, half starved and shivering in the dreariest and dullest of cages--that is, if you looked at what _was_. But Jennifer found another world, in which she had a boundless freedom and strength, and here she went soaring like an eagle right up into the sun. It was what _wasn't_ that she made so much of. You pitied her, and spoke mournfully about her husband, as if he were a burden and worry. But Jennifer never seemed to hear it, and certainly could not see it. "Poor dear," she said, "I can mind the day he asked me to be his wife. I did jump. And all the maidens in the parish would have liked him. When they heard about it they all went wondering whatever he could see in a poor little plain thing like me; but none of them wondered so much as I did. I never could do enough for him when he was well, and now that I have got my chance I should be ashamed if I did not make the best of it. Poor dear, he is as much to me as ever, and more too--husband and child all in one." And she said it over tenderly to herself, "Poor dear!" But this was Jennifer's sentiment, and her sentiments were sacred and kept mostly for home use. It was the philosopher that met you more commonly. You spoke to her pitifully of her husband's affliction, and were almost startled at the tone of her cheery voice. "Yes, 'tis sad. But bless you, think of what _might_ ha' been. If he was in racks of torments all day long, and me at his side doing nothing else but poulticing and trying to give him a bit of ease! Or if we was both like he is--me and he, too, a-setting by the fire and never able to do anything for each other, whatever should us have done then? Only to think of it. And there--it might ha' been; of course, it might ha' been. What a mercy!" And Jennifer lifted up her hands. "What a mercy!"