“No,” answered Lydia, “I never had Medora’s looks. In her case life’s been too smooth and easy if anything. She had a comfortable home with Tom here after her father died; and then came along a choice of two good men to wed her and the admiration of a dozen others. She was in two minds between Kellock and Dingle for a while; but her luck held and she took the right one.” “Are you sure of that?” “Yes—for Medora. That’s not to say that Jordan Kellock isn’t a cleverer chap than my son-in-law. Of course he is. He’s got more mind and more sight. He has ideas about labour and a great gift of determination; and he’s ambitious. He’ll go a long way further than Ned. But against that you can set Ned’s unshakable good temper and light heart. It’s grander for a man to have a heavy heart than a light, when he looks out at the world; but they heavy-hearted, earnest men, who want to help to set life right, call for a different fashion of wife from Medora. If such men wed, they should seek women in their own pattern—the earnest—deadly earnest sort—who don’t think of themselves, or their clothes, or their looks, or their comforts. They should find their helpmates in a kind of female that’s rare still, though they grow commoner. And Medora ain’t that sort, and if she’d took Kellock she’d have been no great use to him and he’d have been no lasting use to her.” “Dear me!” murmured Mr. Pinhey, “how you look into things.” “Ned’s all right,” continued Mrs. Trivett. “He’s all right, for Medora; and she ought to be all right for him. He loves her with all his heart and, in a word, she doesn’t know her luck. That’s what I must try and show her if I can. It’s just a sort of general discontent about nothing in particular. You can’t have it both ways. Ned’s easy and likes a bit of fun. He’s a good workman—in fact above the average, or he wouldn’t be where he is. As a beaterman you won’t find his better in any paper mill; but it ends there. He does his work and he’s reached his limit. And away from work, he’s just a schoolboy from his task. He’s light hearted and ought to be happy; and if she is not, he’ll worry a great deal. But he won’t know what’s the matter, any more than Medora herself.” Mr. Pinhey’s conventional mind proceeded in its natural groove. “To say it delicately, perhaps if a child was to come along it would smooth out the crumpled rose-leaves,” he suggested. “You might think so; but it isn’t that. They both agree there. They don’t like children and don’t want them.” “Well, I should be the last to blame them, I’m sure. It may not be true to nature, but it’s true to truth, that the young married couples ain’t so keen about families as they used to be.”