"As to church-gwaine," he said, on a Sunday morning when he and his elder
niece had driven off to Sancreed as usual, leaving Joan in the orchard;
"she've larned to look 'pon it from a Luke Gosp'ler's pint o' view. Doan't
you fret, Polly. Let her bide. 'Twill come o' itself bimebye wan o' these
Sundays. Poor tiby lamb! Christ's a watchin' of her, Polly. An' if this
here gen'leman, by the name o' Mister Jan, doan't come--"
"You make me daft!" she interrupted, with impatience. "D'you mean as you
ever thot he would?"
"I hopes. Theer's sich a 'mazin' deal o' good in human nature. Mayhap he'm
wraslin' wi' his sawl to this hour. An' the Lard do allus fight 'pon the
side o' conscience. Iss fay! Some 'ow I do think as he'll come."
Mary said no more. She was quite positive that her cousin and her uncle
were alike mistaken; but she saw that, until the hard truth forced itself
upon Joan, the girl would go her present way. It was not that Joan lacked
goodness and sweetness, but, in Mary's opinion, she took an obstinate and
wrong-headed course upon the one vital subject of her own salvation. Mary
fought with herself to love Joan, and the battle now was only hard when Joe
Noy came within the scope of her thoughts. She banished him as much as she
could, but it never grew easy, and the complex problems bred of reflections
on this theme maddened her. For she had always loved him, and that
affection, thrust away as deadly-sin, when he left her for another, could
not be wholly strangled now.
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