In the course of hard service he had seen much grief, and suffered plenty of bitterness, and he knew that it is not the part of a man to multiply any of his troubles but children.

He went about his work, and he thought of all his comforts, which need not have taken very long to count, but he added to their score by not counting them, and by the self-same process diminished that of troubles.

And thus, upon the whole, he deserved his Sunday dinner, and the tale of his hostess after it, not a word of which Mary was allowed to hear, for some subtle reason of her mother's.

But the farmer heard it all, and kept interrupting so, when his noddings and the joggings of his pipe allowed, or, perhaps one should say, compelled him, that merely for the courtesy of saving common time it is better now to set it down without them.

Moreover, there are many things well worthy of production which she did not produce, for reasons which are now no hinderance.