she turned again to the
dressing-table. And through a blur, she saw all the objects ranged in a
long row on the white cloth that covered the rosewood; and she thought:
"All this is beautiful." And she saw the pale blinds drawn down behind
the dressing-table, and the valance at the top, and the draped curtains;
and herself darkly in the glass. And she could feel the vista of the
large, calm, comfortable room behind her, and could hear the coals
falling together in the grate, and the rustling of the architect's
paper, and Mrs. Orgreave's slight cough. And, in her mind, she could see
all the other rooms in the spacious house, and the dim, misted garden
beyond. She thought: "All this house is beautiful. It is the most
beautiful thing I have ever known, or ever shall know. I'm happy here!"
And then her imagination followed each of the children. She imagined
Marian, the eldest, and her babies, in London; and Charlie, also in
London, practising medicine; and Tom and Janet and Alicia at the party
at Hillport; and Jimmie and Johnnie seeing life at Hanbridge; while the
parents remained in tranquillity in their bedroom. All these visions
were beautiful; even the vision of Jimmie and Johnnie flourishing
billiard-cues and glasses and pipes in the smoky atmosphere of a
club--even this was beautiful; it was as simply touching as the other
visions.... And she was at home with the parents, and so extremely
intimate with them that she could nearly conceive herself a genuine
member of the house. She was in bliss. Her immediate past dropped away
from her like an illusion, and she became almost the old Hilda: she was
almost born again into innocence. Only the tragic figure of George
Cannon hung vague in the far distance of memory, and the sight thereof
constricted her heart. Utterly her passion for him had expired: she was
exquisitely sad for him; she felt towards him kindly and guiltily, as
one feels towards an old error.... And, withal, the spell of the home of
the Orgreaves took away his reality.

She was fingering the book. Its title-page ran: _The English Poems of
Richard Crashaw_. Now she had never even heard of Richard Crashaw, and
she wondered who he might be. Turning the pages, she read:

All thy old woes shall now smile on thee,
And thy pains sit bright upon thee,
All thy sorrows here shall shine,
All thy sufferings be divine:
Tears shall take comfort, and turn gems,
And wrongs repent to diadems.

And