I have said that after our removal to Hornby our
communications with the farm became almost of daily occurrence.
Cousin Holman and I were the two who had least to do with this
intimacy. After Mr Holdsworth regained his health, he too often
talked above her head in intellectual matters, and too often in
his light bantering tone for her to feel quite at her ease with
him. I really believe that he adopted this latter tone in
speaking to her because he did not know what to talk about to a
purely motherly woman, whose intellect had never been cultivated,
and whose loving heart was entirely occupied with her husband,
her child, her household affairs and, perhaps, a little with the
concerns of the members of her husband's congregation, because
they, in a way, belonged to her husband. I had noticed before
that she had fleeting shadows of jealousy even of Phillis, when
her daughter and her husband appeared to have strong interests
and sympathies in things which were quite beyond her
comprehension. I had noticed it in my first acquaintance with
them, I say, and had admired the delicate tact which made the
minister, on such occasions, bring the conversation back to such
subjects as those on which his wife, with her practical
experience of every-day life, was an authority; while Phillis,
devoted to her father, unconsciously followed his lead, totally
unaware, in her filial reverence, of his motive for doing so.
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