Valentine never showed that he thought her altered; Valentine's kindness was just as affectionate and as constant as it had ever been in the happier days of their marriage.

So encouraged, Lavinia had the heart to bear all burdens patiently; and could find sources of happiness for herself, where others could discover nothing but causes for grief.
The room she inhabited was already, through Valentine's self-denying industry, better furnished than any other room in the house; but was far from presenting the same appearance of luxury and completeness to which it attained in the course of after-years.
The charming maple-wood and ivory bookcase, with the prettily-bound volumes ranged in such bright regularity along its shelves, was there certainly, as early as the autumn of 1838.

It would not, however, at that time have formed part of the furniture of Mrs.Blyth's room, if her husband had not provided himself with the means of paying for it, by accepting a certain professional invitation to the country, which he knew before, and would enable him to face the terrors of the upholsterer's bill.
The invitation in question had been sent to him by a clerical friend, the Reverend Doctor Joyce, Rector of St.Judy's, in the large agricultural town of Rubbleford.

Valentine had produced a water-color drawing of one of the Doctor's babies, when the family at the Rectory were in London for a season, and this drawing had been shown to all the neighbors by the worthy clergyman on his return.

Now, although Mr.Blyth was not over-successful in the adult department of portrait-art, he was invariably victorious in the infant department.