She put her hands on his shoulders and lifted her face for his kiss.
"My good son!" she said.

"Thy love is my love, and thy joy is my joy! Sit thee down, John, and tell me all about it." So they sat down together on the bright hearth, sat down so close that John could feel the constant touch of his mother's hand--that white, firm hand which had guided and comforted him all his life long.
"Mother," he said, "if anyone had told me this morning that I should be Jane's betrothed husband before I slept this night, I would hardly have believed in the possibility.

But Love is like a flower; it lies quiet in its long still growth, and then in some happy hour it bursts into perfect bloom.

I had finished my business at Overton and stayed to eat the market dinner with the spinners.

Then in the quiet afternoon I took my way home, and about a mile above the village I met Jane.