a husband,
and never will; though if she's got enough of it, it may keep her from
ever having one. I don't hold with cleverness in a woman myself; it has
always ended in mischief, from the time when the woman ate a bit of the
Tree of Knowledge, and there was such a to-do about it."

"I wish she'd marry Mr. Christopher; he worships the very ground she
walks on, and she couldn't find a better man if she swept out all the
corners of the earth looking for one."

"Well, at any rate, she knows all about him; that is something. I always
say that men are the same as kittens--you should take 'em straight from
their mothers, or else not take 'em at all; for, if you don't, you never
know what bad habits they may have formed or what queer tricks they will
be up to."

"Maybe the manager's nephew ain't altogether the sort of husband you'd
expect for a Farringdon," said Mrs. Bateson thoughtfully; "I don't deny
that. But he's wonderful fond of her, Mr. Christopher is; and there's
nothing like love for smoothing things over when the oven ain't properly
heated, and the meat is done to a cinder on one side and all raw on the
other. You find that out when you're married."

"You find a good many things out when you're married, Mrs. Bateson, and
one is that this world is a wilderness of care. But as for love, I
don't rightly know much about it, since Hankey would always rather have
had my sister Sarah than me, and only put up with me when she gave him
the pass-by, being set on marrying one of the family. I'm sure, for my
part, I wish Sarah had had him; though I've no call to say so, her
always having been a good sister to me."

"Well, love's a fine thing; take my word for it. It keeps the men from
grumbling when nothing else will; except, of course, the grace of God,"
added Mrs. Bateson piously, "though even that don't always seem to have
much effect, when things go wrong with their dinners."

"That's because they haven't enough of it; they haven't much grace in
their hearts, as a rule, haven't men, even the best of them; and the
best of them don't often come my way. But as for Miss Elisabeth, she
isn't a regular Farringdon, as you may say--not the real daughter of the
works; and so she shouldn't take too much upon herself, expecting dukes
and ironmasters and the like to come begging to her on their bended
knees. She is only Miss Farringdon's adopted daughter, at best; and I
don't hold with adopted children, I don't; I think it is bet