But it is not always joyful, nay, it can have an element of despair in it, to stay at home, and never go away, and see the wheel of life slowly turn and turn, and re-turn, and yet again re-turn, always the same, yet taking every year part of our youth from us. The years must come which will strip from us what we have. Yes, we know that. But life should surely give us something first, before it begins to take away. Janey was only five-and-twenty, and it seemed to her that already the plundering years had come. What little she had was being wrested from her. And an immense distaste and fatigue of life invaded her as she made her lily and maiden-hair cross for the font. How often she had made it, as she was making it now! Should she go on for ever, till she was sixty, making crosses for the font at Harvest Homes, and putting holly in the windows at Christmas, and "doing the reading-desk" with primroses at Easter? Harry working beside her, concocting little sheaves out of the great bundle of barley which Roger had sent in the night before, was blissfully happy. He held up each sheaf in turn, and she nodded surprise and approbation. It seemed to her that after all Harry had the best of the bargain, the hard bargain which life drives with some of us. It was all as it had always been. Soon after eleven, Miss Amy Blinkett, a little fluttered and self-conscious, appeared as usual, followed up the aisle by a wheelbarrow, in which reposed an enormous vegetable marrow with "Trust in the Lord" blazoned on it in red flannel letters. These "marrer texes," as the villagers called them, were in great request, not only in Riff, but in the adjoining parishes; and it was not an uncommon thing for "Miss Amy's marrer" to be bespoken, after it had served at Riff, for succeeding Harvest Homes in the neighbourhood. It had been evolved out of her inner consciousness in her romantic youth, and in the course of thirty years it had grown from a dazzling novelty to an important asset, and was now an institution. Even the lamentable Mr. Jones, who had "set himself against" so many Riff customs, had never set himself against "Miss Amy's marrer." And an admiring crowd always gathered round it after service to view it reclining on a bed of moss beneath the pulpit.