For this morning he was not quite so sure that he was glad.... Lighting the fire, he set the kettle to boil, afterwards going into the shadowy little larder to look for milk. His wife would be awake before long, and he would take her up a cup of tea as soon as the kettle permitted. Both he and Mattie were getting on in years,--he seventy and she sixty-nine--but they were able to do for themselves yet. It was a good thing, he said to himself, considering all that lay before them, that they were able to do for themselves yet.... He said it to himself more than once as he found a cup and saucer and the sugar that Mattie loved; passing about the house with the careless precision of practice, as well as with something more,--the delicate, kindly step of one accustomed to move in narrow and crowded places, and among fragile things like flowers. And never once did he look at the letter. The kettle was slow in boiling, for the fire burnt lazily, this morning. Fires were sensitive things, people said, which knew when those who lighted them were in trouble.... He checked himself guiltily when he found himself thinking that, because of course there was no trouble. On the contrary, there was a great deal of happiness ahead, as well as excitement and adventure and reunion and new life. The last especially appealed to him, because, as head gardener at Ings Hall, he was continually bringing new life into existence. It was surely always a wonderful thing to be about to greet new life! Mattie would think it wonderful, at all events, in spite of her wordlessness last night. She had continued to keep silence even when he had joined her upstairs, and as he had refrained from looking at her, in his delicate, sensitive way, he would never know now whether or not she had cried. But while he had lain awake she had slept peacefully,--peacefully, silently, graciously,--slept as he had hardly ever known her to sleep, for she was too active a woman, both in body and mind, to sleep very well. Indeed, for months before the letter came to be written, she had hardly slept at all.... But last night she had slept as those sleep who for years have felt themselves to be behind bars, until the time comes at last when they lie down with relaxed limbs and smooth brows, knowing themselves free. It was a great thing, of course, to be free. Mattie had said it so often that he supposed it must be true. He supposed it, just as he supposed that he himself was not free, because she had said that so often, too. He had never been able really to understand what she meant, because he could not think of a freer life than one spent among trees and fruit and flowers. But she must know better than he did what freedom meant, because she had thought about it so much. Talked about it so much, too, year in and year out.... Yes, it was a great thing to be free.