Where she had suffered so much.' Alas! And that was the way in which the eighteen months in Milton - to him so unspeakably precious, down to its very bitterness, which was worth all the rest of life's sweetness - would be remembered. Neither loss of father, nor loss of mother, dear as she was to Mr. Thornton, could have poisoned the remembrance of the weeks, the days, the hours, when a walk of two miles, every step of which was pleasant, as it brought him nearer and nearer to her, took him to her sweet presence - every step of which....he could never have spoken of that time, when he could have seen her every day - when he had her within his grasp, as it were - as a time of suffering.