As he sat in the sun, looking back on the last seven years, with a slow and dreaming mind, Reuben recognised, using his own phrases for the matter, that the children's thirty pounds had been the pivot of Hannah's existence.
He was but a small sheep farmer, with very scanty capital.

By dint of hard work and painful thrift, the childless pair had earned a sufficient living in the past--nay, even put by a bit, if the truth of Hannah's savings-bank deposits were known.

But every fluctuation in their small profits tried them sorely--tried Hannah especially, whose temper was of the brooding and grasping order.

The _certainty_ of Mr.Gurney's cheques made them very soon the most cheerful facts in the farm life.

On two days in the year--the 20th of June and the 20th of December--Reuben might be sure of finding his wife in a good temper, and he had long shrewdly suspected, without inquiring, that Hannah's savings-bank book, since the children came, had been very pleasant reading to her.
Reuben fidgeted uncomfortably as he thought of those savings.
Certainly the children had not cost what was paid for them.