married
life; but the faithful, patient nature that still works on, striving
to gain love, and capable itself of steady love all the while, is a
gift not given to all.

For many weeks after their wedding, Kester never came near them: a
chance word or two from Sylvia showed Philip that she had noticed
this and regretted it; and, accordingly, he made it his business at
the next leisure opportunity to go to Haytersbank (never saying a
word to his wife of his purpose), and seek out Kester.

All the whole place was altered! It was new white-washed, new
thatched: the patches of colour in the surrounding ground were
changed with altered tillage; the great geraniums were gone from the
window, and instead, was a smart knitted blind. Children played
before the house-door; a dog lying on the step flew at Philip; all
was so strange, that it was even the strangest thing of all for
Kester to appear where everything else was so altered!

Philip had to put up with a good deal of crabbed behaviour on the
part of the latter before he could induce Kester to promise to come
down into the town and see Sylvia in her new home.

Somehow, the visit when paid was but a failure; at least, it seemed
so at the time, though probably it broke the ice of restraint which
was forming over the familiar intercourse between Kester and Sylvia.
The old servant was daunted by seeing Sylvia in a strange place, and
stood, sleeking his hair down, and furtively looking about him,
instead of seating himself on the chair Sylvia had so eagerly
brought forward for him.

Then his sense of the estrangement caused by their new positions
infected her, and she began to cry pitifully, saying,--

'Oh, Kester! Kester! tell me about Haytersbank! Is it just as it
used to be in feyther's days?'

'Well, a cannot say as it is,' said Kester, thankful to have a
subject started. 'They'n pleughed up t' oud pasture-field, and are
settin' it for 'taters. They're not for much cattle, isn't
Higginses. They'll be for corn in t' next year, a reckon, and
they'll just ha' their pains for their payment. But they're allays
so pig-headed, is folk fra' a distance.'

So they went on discoursing on Haytersbank and the old days, till
Bell Robson, having finished her afternoon nap, came slowly
down-stairs to join them; and after that the conversation became so
broken up, from the desire of the other two to attend and reply as
best they could to her fragmentary and disjointed talk, that K