cheerless life for you without another woman to share your days on a
footing of affection and friendship and--more for your sake than my
own--I've ordained to wed again. Not till I heard you praise her did I
allow my thoughts to dwell on Mrs. Bascombe, but getting better acquaint,
I found her all you said, and more. A woman of very fine character--so
fearless and just such a touzer for work as yourself, and, in a word,
seeing that you did ought to have a fellow-woman to share your labours and
lighten your load, I approached her and she's took me. And I thank God for
it, because you and her will be my right and left hand henceforward; and
the three of us be like to pull amazing well together. 'Tis a great
advancement for Wych Elm in my judgment, and I will that the advantage
shall be first of all for you."

She heard him out with her little eyes on his face and her darning dropped
and her jaw dropped also, as if she'd been struck dead. But he expected
something like that, because he very well knew Jane would hate the news
and make a rare upstore about it. He was all for a short battle and very
wishful to go to bed the conqueror. But he did not. Jane hadn't got his
mellow flow of words, nor yet his charming touches when he wanted his way
over a job; but she shared a good bit of his brain-power and she grasped
at this fatal moment, with the future sagging under her feet, that she'd
never be able to put up no fight nor hold her own that night. In fact, she
knew, as we all do, that you can't do yourself justice after you've been
knocked all ends up by a thunderbolt. But she kept her nerve and her wits
and looked at him and shut her mouth and put up her work in her
workbasket.

"Good night, father," she said. "Us'll talk about it to-morrow, if you
please."