surprised the maiden, after all her words; and once or twice they
had had a cry together, clearing and strengthening their intellects
desirably. For the more Mistress Anerley began to think about it, the
more she was almost sure that something could be said on both sides. She
never had altogether approved of the farmer's volunteering, which took
him away to drill at places where ladies came to look at him; and where
he slept out of his own bed, and got things to eat that she had never
heard of; and he never was the better afterward. If that was the thing
which set his mind against free trade so bitterly, it went far to show
that free trade was good, and it made all the difference of a blanket.
And more than that, she had always said from the very first, and had
even told the same thing to Captain Carroway, in spite of his position,
that nobody knew what Robin Lyth might not turn out in the end to be.
He had spoken most highly of her, as Mary had not feared to mention; and
she felt obliged to him for doing so, though of course he could not do
otherwise. Still, there were people who would not have done that, and it
proved that he was a very promising young man.

Mary was pleased with this conclusion, and glad to have some one who did
not condemn her; hopeful, moreover, that her mother's influence might
have some effect by-and-by. But for the present it seemed to do more
harm than good; because the farmer, having quite as much jealousy as
justice, took it into silent dudgeon that the mother of his daughter,
who regularly used to be hard upon her for next to nothing, should now
turn round and take her part, from downright womanism, in the teeth of
all reason, and of her own husband! Brave as he was, he did not put it
to his wife in so strong a way as that; but he argued it so to himself,
and would let it fly forth, without thinking twice about it, if they
went on in that style much longer, quite as if he were nobody, and
they could do better without him. Little he knew, in this hurt state of
mind--for which he should really have been too old--how the heart of
his child was slow and chill, stupid with the strangeness he had made,
waiting for him to take the lead, or open some door for entrance,
and watching for the humors of the elder body, as the young of past
generations did. And sometimes, faithful as she was to plighted truth
and tenderness, one coaxing word would have brought her home to the arms
that used to carry her.