But after this night there was a different atmosphere in John Penelles' cottage. John's unhappiness had been mainly caused by the sight of his wife's anxiety and sorrow; and if Joan was her old self, John was not the man to let the loss of his boat and his position make him miserable. For in this little cottage the wife held the same mighty power that the wife holds in all finer homes--the power to either make her husband weak and sorrowful or to strengthen his heart for anything. When Joan smiled, then John could not only enjoy the present, but he could also bravely face the future. For when a man can trust in his wife, then he can hope in his God and all things are possible to him.
Denas also caught the trick of hoping and of being happy. She opened her school with thirty scholars and found out her vocation. No one could doubt the voice which had called her to this work; she went to it as naturally as a bird goes to build its nest. She loved the children and they loved her. At the end of the first week she found herself compelled to make her number forty. The sweet authority pleased her. The children's affection won her. Her natural power to impart what knowledge she had gave her the sense of a benefaction. Such loving allegiance! Such bigoted little adherents! Such blind disciples as Denas had! In a couple of weeks she was the idol of every child in St. Penfer by the Sea, and as mothers see through their children, she was equally popular with the children of larger growth.
One very singular incident of this popularity was the fact that every child, without special intent, without the slightest thought of offence, called their beloved teacher Denas Penelles. For a time she corrected the mistake, but the name Tresham was strange and unfamiliar. They looked at her with wide-open eyes and then went back to the old word. Denas perceived that they heard her called Penelles in their homes, and that it was useless to take offence where none was intended. Yet the inferred wrong to her dead husband wounded her and rekindled in her heart the fire of old affection.
"They want me to forget his very name," she thought angrily, and the natural result was a determination to nurse with greater fondness the memory which time and circumstances were daily doing their best to efface.