He would be
very glad to share in the little life that was upon the way to earth. He
always spoke kindly of children; he had called them the flower-buds in
Nature's lap. Yes, he must be glad; and Nature would smile too. Nature knew
what it was to be a mother, Joan told herself. She was in Nature's hand
henceforth. But her blue eyes grew cold when she thought of the morning. So
much for St. Madron and his holy water; so much for the good angels who her
dead parent had told her were forever stretching loving, invisible hands to
guard and shield. "Mister Jan's be the awnly God," she thought, "an' He'm
tu far aways to mind the likes o' we; so us must trust to the gert Mother
o' the flowers." She accepted the position with an open heart, then turned
her thoughts to her loved one. Having now firmly convinced herself that her
condition would bring him gratification and draw them still nearer each to
the other, Joan yearned unutterably for his presence. She puzzled her
brains to know how she might communicate with him, how hasten his return.
She remembered that he had once told her his surname, but she could not
recollect it now. He had always been "Mister Jan" to her.
She went down to her supper in the course of the evening, and the great
matter in her mind was for a while put aside before a present necessity.
Action, she found, would be immediately required of her. Her father, before
going from the kitchen after she had fainted, directed Thomasin to bid her
never see his face again.
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