The dignity all vanished when she laid her head on her hands on the table and had a little cry to herself. Things were all so different from what she had expected, and such a loneliness seemed to have crept into her heart! When she lifted up her tearful face she saw the bunch of pansies quite close to her, and their faces seemed to look into hers and whisper, "Heart's ease!" "What a comfort!" she whispered to herself. "'Heart's ease,' yes, I know where to get it from. I know I feel disappointed, but ought I not to ask: Is Ralph disappointed in me? and is Jesus disappointed in me?"
"What a mean hound I've been!" thought the young shopman, as he caught sight afterwards of her swollen eyes. "It would have served me right if she had boxed my ears. She'll have enough to put up with without me adding to it." And that same night he walked two miles to beg a bunch of roses for her, saying as he gave them to her: "Please forgive me for having been rude to you."
When a king had chosen the design for the gold work of his signet and selected the stone, carefully studying its hue and markings, then came the _making_ of the signet: the gold was put in the fire, and the gem under the lapidary's hammer.
In a little over a year great alterations had been made in Ralph Waring's establishment. The shop next door had been duly taken, the partition wall broken down, and the grocery business started. The only part of Ralph's plan which had not come about was the throwing in of the back parlour into the business portion. "No," said Phebe firmly, "in this department I mean to come first. I am not going to vote for everything being sacrificed to the business; to have a dining-room upstairs means a great deal of extra work. I must also have the parlour of the other shop to convert into a decent kitchen. How can we expect Janie to be bright and happy with nothing better than a scullery to sit in? I mean my kitchen to be as bright and cheery as any room in the house."
"I wonder who's master here!" said Ralph, with a snap.
"We are partners--at least, that is what you have said, and you rule in one department and I in the other. I have no objection to you having one of the front rooms upstairs for a show-room." Ralph had never thought of that, and as it sounded rather "big," it pleased him, and so the dispute ended.