ONE:Tilly was now nearly eighteen. She had always been like her mother, but as she grew older the likeness became more and more pronounced, till sometimes it seemed to Reuben as if it were Naomi herself with her milky skin and fleeting rose-bloom who sat at his table and moved about his house. The only difference lay in a certain prominence of the chin which gave her an air of decision that Naomi had lacked. Not that Tilly was ever anything but docile, but occasionally Reuben felt that some time or other she might take her standa fear which had never troubled him with Naomi.Reuben had no sympathy with these fancies when they took his son out of hard-working common sense into idle-handed, wander-footed dreams, or when perhaps he found them scribbled on the back of his corn accounts. He did not spare the rod, but Albert had all the rather futile obstinacy of weak-willed people, and could be neither persuaded nor frightened out of his dreams.
