“It seems to me, Flo,” and Leslie stretched out his legs in the warmth,
“the chief good of easy circumstances is being able to afford a
wood fire in one's bedroom,--that and books. Do you remember that
evil-smelling oil-stove in our little house at Islington? By the way,
did I tell you that I ran out one afternoon last week, when I had an
hour to spare, and paid an outside visit to our first home. It looked
rather forlorn, and so small and shabby.”
“It was the dearest little house when we lived in it, John,” and Mrs.
Leslie saw wonderful things in the firelight; “and when you were at
the office I used to go from room to room, arranging and dusting and
admiring.”
“Yes, but you also had the most toothsome evening meals ready at eight
p.m. for a struggling colonial broker, and used to dress perfectly, and
did it all on next to nothing.”
“Two hundred and twenty-two pounds five shillings and threepence--that,
sir, was the first year's income. Don't you remember making up the book,
and finding we had thirty pounds over; but, then, Jack, we had... a
perfect servant.”
“Poor Margaret! what an interest she took in our daring enterprise! By
the way, your memory is better than mine, wife: didn't we tell her how
the balance stood, and she was the best pleased of the three?”
“'Praise God!' she cried, 'I knew, Mr. John, you did right to trust and
to marry, and some day I'll see you in a big house, if God will'; and
then you told her to bring up her missionary box and you gave her a
sovereign, and when she put it in, her hand was shaking for joy. Her
temper has got masterful since she grew old, and she is aggravating; but
I know she's a good woman.”
“Yes, Meg wouldn't have left us if we had been down on our luck: I
believe she would have seen us through and gone without wages”; and
Leslie spoke with the tone of one hazarding a wild speculation.
“You believe, John!” clever women are sometimes befooled. “Why, have you
forgotten that winter when you lost so heavily, and it looked as if we
would have to go into rooms, how Margaret wanted to go out cooking to
help the family, and she would have done it had not things taken a turn?
Whatever be her faults,--and she has been provoking,--she is a loyal
soul.”
“Well, we only had one bad illness, Flo, and I'll never forget the
mornings when I came from my lodgings and stood on the street, and you
told me what kind of night Jack had had, and the days when I toiled
at the office, and you fought scarlet fever at home. You were a brave
woman--without a nurse, too.”
“Without what--for shame, John!--when Maggie sat up all night and worked
all day, and was so clever that the doctor said she had saved Jack's
life--well, perhaps be admitted that I helped, but she did more than
I could--I would rather have let twenty housemaids go than see Maggie
leave, John, if she had given me the chance.”
“Margaret always had a temper, Flo, even in the old days when I was a
boy, and now she's fairly roused.”
“It isn't temper at all now, John, or I would not be so vexed: it's her
goodness which will drive her out in the end, and she'll never know
one day of happiness again. She told me to-night that she was sure that
there would always be trouble between her and the other servants, and as
she had tried to serve us well when she was younger she would not make
our home unhappy in her old age. Jack pleaded with her, and I--I nearly
cried; she was quite affected, too, but she is immovable.”
“Well, we can do no more, and you mustn't blame yourself, Flo: it has
just been a smash; and if she does go, we must see that she be made
comfortable in her last years. But I wish old Margaret were not leaving
us on Christmas Eve. Jack is very sick about it, and I rather suspect
that he was crying when I looked into his room just now; but he
pretended to be asleep, and I couldn't insult a fellow in the fifth form
with remarks.”