The stern, troubled look on the young volunteer’s face, which Bess had seen and her father had not, he could not understand, and therefore could not credit. One day the girl said, as if struck by a sudden thought— “Feyther, aw saw Tum look hard at Jabez. Dun yo’ think as heaw he fancied aw wur wed?” “He moight, lass, he moight,” said he, knocking the ashes out of his pipe; “but dunnot thee fret; aw’ll look Tum up, and set it o’ reet, if that’s o’.” But there was no setting it right, for by that time Tom had left the corps and the town, and thenceforth Bessy’s musical pipe was out of tune, and stopped utterly. She worked, it is true, but she had no heart in her work; and though before her father she kept up a show of cheerfulness, in his absence she had shed many and bitter tears. Smiles and tears are among a child’s earliest perceptions and experiences. Of the mother’s smile in its full sense Jabez knew nothing. With all her winning ways, Bess could never supply that want, if want it could be where it was never missed, having so good a substitute. But of the change which came over her when she knew that Tom was indeed lost to her, even the three years child could be sensible. He had been early taught to show a brave front when he hurt himself, and the starting tears would subdue to a whimper; but, for all that, tears to him meant pain or disappointment, and as they fell and wetted the (not always clean) little cheek laid lovingly against hers, a tender chord was struck; he would press his small arm tighter round her neck, and with a sympathetic “Don’t ky, Beth!” nestle closer, and try to kiss away the drops, which only fell the faster. Low-spirited nurses do not make lively children, and Jabez, after a stout tussle with the whooping-cough, began to droop as much as Bess; so clear-eyed Simon instituted a series of Sunday rambles for the three, in search of plants and posies, to brighten their dull home, and of bloom to brighten the fading cheeks. Sometimes Matt Cooper, with one or two of his youngsters, would join them, but not often; Sal was so jealous of his friendship with the Cleggs, and the pleasant day was so certain to be marred by an unpleasant reception in the evening at home. These Summer walks seldom extended beyond Collyhurst Clough and quarries, or Smedley Vale, or through the fields to Chetham Hill, stopping at the “Cow and Calf” to refresh, and rest the little ones, before they came back laden with wild flowers down Red Bank and over Scotland Bridge, to their respective “yards” in Long Millgate. At first, whenever they took the lower road through Angel Meadow, they did their best to ferret out the parentage and connections of Jabez, hoping by their inquiries even to keep alive the memory of his marvellous deliverance, so that in case the missing father should return, there might be a mutual restoration.