She heard all that about Lady Hartletop, and shuddered at Lily's bold sarcasm.

And she heard Lily say that mamma would stay at home and eat the peas, and said to herself sadly that that was now her lot in life.
"Dear darling girl--and so it should be!" It was thus her thoughts ran.

And then, when her ear had traced them, as they passed across the little bridge into the other grounds, she returned across the lawn to the house with her burden on her arm, and sat herself down on the step of the drawing-room window, looking out on the sweet summer flowers and the smooth surface of the grass before her.
Had not God done well for her to place her where she was?
Had not her lines been set for her in pleasant places?
Was she not happy in her girls,--her sweet, loving, trusting, trusty children?
As it was to be that her lord, that best half of herself, was to be taken from her in early life, and that the springs of all the lighter pleasures were to be thus stopped for her, had it not been well that in her bereavement so much had been done to soften her lot in life and give it grace and beauty?
'Twas so, she argued with herself, and yet she acknowledged to herself that she was not happy.

She had resolved, as she herself had said often, to put away childish things, and now she pined for those things which she so put from her.

As she sat she could still hear Lily's voice as they went through the shrubbery,--hear it when none but a mother's ears would have distinguished the sound.