Is your mother alive ?' 'Yes.' 'Is she a nice lady ?' 'Very--the best mother in the world.

Her people had been well-to-do yeomen for centuries, but she was only a dairymaid.' 'O Stephen!' came from her in whispered exclamation.
'She continued to attend to a dairy long after my father married her,' pursued Stephen, without further hesitation.

'And I remember very well how, when I was very young, I used to go to the milking, look on at the skimming, sleep through the churning, and make believe I helped her.

Ah, that was a happy time enough!' 'No, never--not happy.' 'Yes, it was.' 'I don't see how happiness could be where the drudgery of dairy-work had to be done for a living--the hands red and chapped, and the shoes clogged....Stephen, I do own that it seems odd to regard you in the light of--of--having been so rough in your youth, and done menial things of that kind.' (Stephen withdrew an inch or two from her side.) 'But I DO LOVE YOU just the same,' she continued, getting closer under his shoulder again, 'and I don't care anything about the past; and I see that you are all the worthier for having pushed on in the world in such a way.' 'It is not my worthiness; it is Knight's, who pushed me.' 'Ah, always he--always he!' 'Yes, and properly so.

Now, Elfride, you see the reason of his teaching me by letter.