She was always making these little speeches to me; it was one of her gracious ways. She could be grateful to a servant for doing her duty. She was not one of those people who take everything as a matter of course, who treat their domestics and hirelings as though they were mere machines for the day’s work; on the contrary, she recognised their humanity; she would sympathise as tenderly with a sick footman or a kitchen-maid in trouble as she would with any of her richer neighbours. It was this large-mindedness and beneficence that made her household worship her. When I learnt more about her former life, I marvelled at her grand self-abnegation. I grew to understand that from the day of her marriage she had simply effaced herself for her husband’s sake; her tastes, her favourite pursuits, had all been resigned without a murmur that she might lead his life. She had been a simple country girl when he married her; her bees, her horse, and her father’s dogs had been her great interests; to ride with her father over his farms had been her chief delight. She had often risen with the lark, and was budding her roses amid the dews. When the young rising politician, Alick Morton, had first met her at a neighbouring squire’s house, her sweet bloom and unconscious beauty won him in spite of himself, and from the first hour of their meeting he vowed to himself that Violet Cheriton should be his wife. No greater change had ever come to a woman. In spite of her great love, there must have been times when Violet Morton looked back on her innocent and happy girlhood with something like regret, if ever a true-hearted wife and mother permits herself to indulge in such a feeling. Mr. Morton was a devoted husband, but he was an autocrat, and, in spite of many fine qualities, was not without that selfishness that leavens many a man’s nature. He wanted his wife to himself; his busy ambition aimed high; politics was the breath of his life; unlike other men in this, that he lived to work, instead of working to live. These sort of natures know no fatigue; they are intolerant of difficulties; inaction means death to them. Mr. Morton was a committee man; he worked hard for his party. He was a philanthropist also, and took up warmly certain public charities. His name was becoming widely known; people spoke of him as a rising man, who would be useful to his generation. If he dragged his wife at his triumphal chariot wheel, no one blamed him; these sort of men need real helpmeets. In these cases the stronger nature rules: the weaker and most loving submits.