"Mary's gettin' over it tu," he said, "least-ways I think she is. Her knaws
wheer to look for comfort, bless her. Us must all keep friendly for life's
not long enough to do 'nough good in, I allus says, let alone the doin' o'
bad."
Then he discussed Joe Noy, and Joan was startled to find, when she came to
think seriously upon the subject, that though but a week and three days had
passed since she bid her lover "good-by," yet the picture of him in her
mind already grew a trifle dim, and the prospect of his absence for a year
held not the least sorrow in it for her.
Presently, after looking to his horse, Uncle Thomas hinted at forty winks,
if the same would be quite convenient, and Joan, settling him with some
approach to comfort upon n little horsehair sofa in the parlor, turned her
attention to the making of saffron cakes for tea.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MAKING OF PROGRESS
John Barron held strong theories about the importance of the mental
condition when work was in hand. Once fairly engaged upon a picture, he
painted very fast, labored without cessation, and separated himself as far
as might be from every outside influence. No new interests were suffered to
intrude upon his mind; no distractions of any sort, intellectual or
otherwise, were permitted to occupy even those leisure intervals which of
necessity lay between the periods of his work. On the present occasion he
merely fed and slept and dwelt solitary, shunning society of every sort and
spending as little time in Newlyn as possible.
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