‘Asleep for seven years? Indeed, you are unkind to Mary,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘You can’t think what a comfort she has been to me, Ben. She has always read to me, and driven with me, and talked when I could bear it, and got my worsted work straight, and given the housekeeper her orders. If she had been my own child she could not have been nicer. And never cared for going out or anything. I am sure it is not necessary for me to say it; but if anything should happen to me, I hope you will all be very kind to Mary. You can’t think what a good child she has been.’ ‘Kind to Mary!’ said Ben, holding out his hand to her. Well, perhaps there might be something more than even respect and esteem,--affection,--that was the word:--family affection and brotherly-kindness. And what could a woman of seven-and-twenty desire or dream of more? And when they retired to the drawing-room Mrs. Renton was very eloquent about the change of affairs. ‘Not to say that it is Ben, my dear,--whom of course it is a great happiness to see again,--there is always a pleasure in knowing that there is a man in the house,’ she said. ‘It rouses one up. I am sure there were many days that it was a great bore to go down to dinner. I should have liked a cup of tea in my own room so much better; but a man must always have his dinner. And then they have been about all day, and they have something to tell you, if it is only what is in the evening paper;--and there is always most news in the evening paper, Mary. I have remarked that all my life. And even now, you know, one feels that he will come in by-and-bye,--and that is something to look forward to. It is a great advantage, my dear, to have a man in the house.’ ‘It is very pleasant, at least, to have Ben in the house,’ said Mary; but she quaked a little while she spoke; for what was she to do with him for the rest of the evening after Mrs. Renton went to bed? And if the world was coming to an end, it would not prevent Davison’s appearance at half-past nine to take her mistress up-stairs. And there was not much chance that Ben would be inclined for bed at that early hour. Mary tried hard to brace herself up for the evening’s work, as she made the tea, pondering whether she might retire in her turn about half-past ten or so, that being a proper young ladies’ hour,--though with Laurie she would not have minded how long she sat talking, or letting him talk; and yet Ben had been seeing more, doing more, and had more to tell than Laurie. Thus it sometimes happens that the greater the love the less is the kindness,--though such a word as love had not been breathed in the inmost recesses of Mary Westbury’s mind.