If Mrs Rowland was dissatisfied with her success, while seeing that
some resources of comfort remained to the Hopes and Margaret, a view of
the interior of the corner-house would probably have affected her
deeply, and set her moralising on the incompleteness of all human
triumphs. There was peace there which even she could not invade--could
only, if she had known it, envy. Her power was now exhausted, and her
work was unfinished. For many weeks, she had made Margaret as miserable
as she had intended to make her. Margaret had suffered from an
exasperating sense of injury; but that was only for a few hours. Hers
was not a nature which could retain personal resentment for any length
of time. She needed the relief of compassionate and forgiving feelings;
and she cast herself into them for solace, as the traveller, emerging
from the glaring desert, throws himself down beside the gushing spring
in the shade. From the moment that she did this, it became her chief
trouble that Philip was blamed by others. Her friends said as little as
they could in reference to him, out of regard for her feelings; but she
could not help seeing that Maria's indignation was strong, and that
Hester considered that her sister had had a happy escape from a man
capable of treating her as Philip had done. If it had been possible to
undertake his defence, Margaret would have done so. As there were no
means of working upon others to forgive her wrongs, she made it her
consolation to forgive them doubly herself; to cheer up under them; to
live for the aim of being more worthy of Philip's love, the less he
believed her to be so. Her lot was far easier now than it had been in
the winter. She had been his; and she believed that she still occupied
his whole soul. She was not now the solitary, self-despising being she
had felt herself before. Though cut off from intercourse with him as if
the grave lay between them, she knew that sympathy with her heart and
mind existed. She experienced the struggles, the moaning efforts, of
affections doomed to solitude and silence; the shrinking from a whole
long life of self-reliance, of exclusion from domestic life; the
occasional horror of contemplating the waste and withering of some of
the noblest parts of the immortal nature,--a waste and withering which
are the almost certain consequence of violence done to its instincts and
its laws. From these pains and terrors she suffered; and from some of
smaller account,--from the petty insults, or speculations of the more
coarse-minded of her neighbours, and the being too suddenly reminded by
passing circumstances of the change which had come over her expectations
and prospects; but her love, her forgiveness, her conviction of being
beloved, bore her through all these, and saved her from that fever of
the heart, in the paroxysms of which she had, in her former and severer
trial, longed for death, even for non-existence.
She could enjoy but little of what had been her favourite solace at that
time. She had but few opportunities now for long solitary walks. She
saw the autumn fading away, melting in rain and cold fog, without its
having been made use of. It had been as unfavourable a season as the
summer,--dreary, unproductive, disappointing in every way; but there had
been days in the latter autumn when the sun had shown his dim face, when
the dank hedges had looked fresh, and the fallen leaves in the
wood-paths had rustled under the tread of the squirrel; and Margaret
would on such days have liked to spend the whole morning in rambles by
herself. But there were reasons why she should not. Almost before the
chilliness of the coming season began to be felt, hardship was
complained of throughout the country. The prices of provisions were
inordinately high; and the evil consequences which, in the rural
districts, follow upon a scarcity, began to make themselves felt. The
poachers were daring beyond belief; and deep was the enmity between the
large proprietors and the labourers around them. The oldest men and
women, and children scarcely able to walk, were found trespassing day by
day in all plantations, with bags, aprons, or pinafores, full of
fir-cones, and wood snapped off from the trees, or plucked out of the
hedges. There was no end to repairing the fences. There were
unpleasant rumours, too, of its being no longer safe to walk singly in
the more retired places. No such thing as highway robbery had ever
before been heard of at Deerbrook, within the memory of the oldest
inhabitant; the oldest of the inhabitants being Jim Bird, the man of a
hundred years. But there was reason now for the caution. Mr Jones's
meat-cart had been stopped on the high-road, by two men who came out of
the hedge, and helped themselves to what the cart contained. An
ill-looking fellow had crossed the path of Mrs James and her young
sister in the Verdon woods, evidently with the intention of stopping the
ladies; but luckily the jingling of a timber-wain was heard below, and
the man had retreated. Mr Grey had desired that the ladies of his
family would not go further without his escort than a mile out and back
again on the high-road. They were not to attempt the lanes. The Miss
Andersons no longer came into Deerbrook in their pony-chaise; and Mrs
Howell reported to all her customers that Lady Hunter never walked in
her own grounds without a footman behind her, two dogs before her, and
the game-keeper within hearing of a scream. Mr Walcot was advised to
leave his watch and purse at home when he set forth to visit his country
patients; and it did not comfort him much to perceive that his
neighbours were always vigilant to note the hour and minute of his
setting forth, and to learn the precise time when he might be looked for
at home again. It was observed, that he was generally back half-an-hour
sooner than he was expected, with a very red face, and his horse all in
a foam.
In addition to these grounds of objection to solitary walks, Margaret
had strong domestic reasons for denying herself the rambles she
delighted in. As the months rolled on, poverty pressed closer and
closer. When the rent was secured, and some of the comforts provided
which Hester must have in her confinement, so little was left that it
became necessary to limit the weekly expenses of the family to a sum
small enough to require the nicest management, and the most strenuous
domestic industry, to make it suffice. Hope would not pledge his credit
while he saw so little prospect of redeeming it. His family were of one
mind as to purchasing nothing which they were not certainly able to pay
for. This being his principle, he made every effort to increase his
funds. A guinea or two dropped in now and then, in return for
contributions to medical periodicals. Money was due to him from some of
his patients. To these he sent in his bills again, and even made
personal application. From several he obtained promises; from two or
three the amount of whose debt was very small, he got his money,
disgraced by smiles of wonder and contempt. From the greater number he
received nothing but excuses on account of the pressure of the times.
The small sums he did recover were of a value which none of the three
had ever imagined that money could be to them. Every little extra
comfort thus obtained,--the dinner of meat once oftener in the week, the
fire in the evening, the new gloves for Hope, when the old ones could no
longer, by any mending, be made to look fit for him,--what a luxury it
was! And all the more for being secretly enjoyed. No one out of the
house had a suspicion how far their poverty had gone. Mr Grey had
really been vexed at them for withdrawing from the book club; had
attributed this instance of economy to the "enthusiasm" which was, in
his eyes, the fault of the family; and never dreamed of their not dining
on meat, vegetables, and pudding, with their glass of wine, every day.
The Greys little knew what a blessing they were conferring on their
cousins, when they insisted on having them for a long day once more
before Hester's confinement, and set them down to steaming soup, and a
plentiful joint, and accompaniments without stint. The guests laughed,
when they were at home again, over the new sort of pleasure they had
felt, the delight at the sight of a good dinner, to which nothing was
wanting but that Morris should have had her share. Morris, for her
part, had been very happy at home. She had put aside for her mistress's
luncheon next day, the broth which she had been told was for her, and
had feasted on potatoes and water, and the idea of the good dinner her
young ladies were to enjoy. While their affairs were in this state, it
was a great luxury in the family to have any unusual comfort which
betokened that Hope had been successful in some of his errands,--had
received a fee, or recovered the amount of a bill. One day, Morris
brought in a goose and giblets, which had been bought and paid for by
Mr Hope, the messenger said. Another morning, came a sack of apples,
from the orchard of a country patient who was willing to pay in kind.
At another time Edward emptied his pockets of knitted worsted stockings
and mittens, the handiwork of a farmer's dame, who was flattered by his
taking the produce of her evening industry instead of money, which she
could not well spare at the present season. There was more mirth, more
real gladness in the house, on the arrival of windfalls like these, than
if Hope had daily exhibited a purse full of gold. There was no sting in
their poverty; no adventitious misery belonging to it. They suffered
its genuine force, and that was all.
What is Poverty? Not destitution, but poverty? It has many shapes,--
aspects almost as various as the minds and circumstances of those whom
it visits. It is famine to the savage in the wilds; it is hardship to
the labourer in the cottage; it is disgrace to the proud; and to the
miser despair. It is a spectre which "with dread of change perplexes"
him who lives at ease. Such are its aspects: but what is it? It is a
deficiency of the comforts of life,--a deficiency present and to come.
It involves many other things; but this is what it is. Is it then worth
all the apprehension and grief it occasions? Is it an adequate cause
for the gloom of the merchant, the discontent of the artisan, the
foreboding sighs of the mother, the ghastly dreams which haunt the
avaricious, the conscious debasement of the subservient, the humiliation
of the proud? These are severe sufferings; are they authorised by the
nature of poverty? Certainly not, if poverty induced no adventitious
evils, involved nothing but a deficiency of the comforts of life,
leaving life itself unimpaired. "The life is more than food, and the
body than raiment;" and the untimely extinction of the life itself would
not be worth the pangs which apprehended poverty excites. But poverty
involves woes which, in their sum, are far greater than itself. To a
multitude it is the loss of a pursuit which they have yet to learn will
be certainly supplied. For such, alleviation or compensation is in
store, in the rising up of objects new, and the creation of fresh hopes.
The impoverished merchant, who may no longer look out for his argosies,
may yet be in glee when he finds it "a rare dropping morning for the
early colewort." To another multitude, poverty involves loss of rank,--
a letting down among strangers whose manners are ungenial, and their
thoughts unfamiliar. For these there may be solace in retirement, or
the evil may fall short of its threats. The reduced gentlewoman may
live in patient solitude, or may grow into sympathy with her neighbours,
by raising some of them up to herself, and by warming her heart at the
great central fire of Humanity, which burns on under the crust of
manners as rough as the storms of the tropics, or as frigid as polar
snows. The avaricious are out of the pale of peace already, and at all
events. Poverty is most seriously an evil to sons and daughters, who
see their parents stripped of comfort, at an age when comfort is almost
one with life itself: and to parents who watch the narrowing of the
capacities of their children by the pressure of poverty,--the impairing
of their promise, the blotting out of their prospects. To such mourning
children there is little comfort, but in contemplating the easier life
which lies behind, and (it may be hoped) the happier one which stretches
before their parents, on the other side the postern of life. If there
is sunshine on the two grand reaches of their path, the shadow which
lies in the midst is necessarily but a temporary gloom. To grieving
parents it should be a consoling truth, that as the life is more than
food, so is the soul more than instruction and opportunity, and such
accomplishments as man can administer: that as the fowls are fed and the
lilies clothed by Him whose hand made the air musical with the one, and
dressed the fields with the other, so is the human spirit nourished and
adorned by airs from heaven, which blow over the whole earth, and light
from the skies, which no hand is permitted to intercept. Parents know
not but that Providence may be substituting the noblest education for
the misteaching of intermediate guardians. It may possibly be so; but
if not, still there is appointed to every human being much training,
many privileges, which capricious fortune can neither give nor take
away. The father may sigh to see his boy condemned to the toil of the
loom, or the gossip and drudgery of the shop, when he would fain have
beheld him the ornament of a university; but he knows not whether a more
simple integrity, a loftier disinterestedness, may not come out of the
humbler discipline than the higher privilege. The mother's eyes may
swim as she hears her little daughter sing her baby brother to sleep on
the cottage threshold,--her eyes may swim at the thought how those wild
and moving tones might have been exalted by art. Such art would have
been in itself a good; but would this child then have been, as now,
about her Father's business, which, in ministering to one of his little
ones, she is as surely as the archangel who suspends new systems of
worlds in the furthest void? Her occupation is now earnest and holy;
and what need the true mother wish for more?
What is poverty to those who are not thus set in families? What is it
to the solitary, or to the husband and wife who have faith in each
other's strength? If they have the higher faith which usually
originates mutual trust, mere poverty is scarcely worth a passing fear.
If they have plucked out the stings of pride and selfishness, and
purified their vision by faith, what is there to dread? What is their
case? They have life, without certainty how it is to be nourished.
They do without certainty, like "the young ravens which cry," and work
for and enjoy the subsistence of the day, leaving the morrow to take
care of what concerns it. If living in the dreariest abodes of a town,
the light from within shines in the dark place, and, dispelling the
mists of worldly care, guides to the blessing of tending the sick, and
sharing the food of to-day with the orphan, and him who has no help but
in them. If the philosopher goes into such retreats with his lantern,
there may he best find the generous and the brave. If, instead of the
alleys of a city, they live under the open sky, they are yet lighter
under their poverty. There, however blank the future may lie before
them, they have to-day the living reality of lawns and woods, and flocks
in "the green pasture and beside the still waters," which silently
remind them of the Shepherd, under whom they shall not want any real
good thing. The quiet of the shady lane is theirs, and the beauty of
the blossoming thorn above the pool. Delight steals through them with
the scent of the violet, or the new mown hay. If they have hushed the
voices of complaint and fear within them, there is the music of the
merry lark for them, or of the leaping waterfall, or of a whole
orchestra of harps, when the breeze sweeps through a grove of pines.
While it is not for fortune to "rob them of free nature's grace," and
while she leaves them life and strength of limb and soul, the certainty
of a future, though they cannot see what, and the assurance of
progression, though they cannot see how,--is poverty worth, for
themselves, more than a passing doubt? Can it ever be worth the torment
of fear, the bondage of subservience?--the compromise of free thought,--
the sacrifice of free speech,--the bending of the erect head, the
veiling of the open brow, the repression of the salient soul? If;
instead of this, poverty should act as the liberator of the spirit,
awakening it to trust in God and sympathy for man, and placing it aloft,
fresh and free, like morning on the hill-top, to survey the expanse of
life, and recognise its realities from beneath its mists, it should be
greeted with that holy joy before which all sorrow and sighing flee
away.
Their poverty, which had never afflicted them very grievously, was
almost lost sight of by the corner-house family, when Hester's infant
was born. They were all happy and satisfied then, though there were
people in Deerbrook who found fault with their arrangements, and were
extremely scandalised when it was found that no nurse had arrived from
Blickley, and that Morris took the charge of her mistress upon herself.
The Greys pronounced by their own fireside that it was a strange fancy--
carrying an affection for an old servant to a rather romantic extreme--
that it was a fresh instance of the "enthusiasm" which adversity had not
yet moderated in their cousins, as might have been wished.
Out-of-doors, however, Sophia vaunted the attachment of Morris to her
young mistress--an attachment so strong, as that she would have been
really hurt if any one else had been allowed to sit up with Hester; and
indeed no one could have filled her place half so much to the
satisfaction of the family--Morris had had so much experience, and was
as fond of her charge as a mother could be. No one knew what a treasure
her cousins had in Morris. All of which was true in its separate
particulars, though altogether it did not constitute the reason why
Hester had no nurse from Buckley.
They were happy and satisfied. Yes, even Margaret. This infant opened
up a spring of consolation in her heart, which she could not have
believed existed there. On this child she could pour out some of her
repressed affections, and on him did she rest her baffled hopes. He
beguiled her into the future, from which she had hitherto recoiled.
That helpless, unconscious little creature, cradled on her arm, and
knowing nothing of its resting-place, was more powerful than sister,
brother, or friend--than self-interest, philosophy, or religion, in
luring her imagination onward into future years of honour and peace.
Holy and sweet was the calm of her mind, as, forgetting herself and her
griefs, she watched the first efforts of this infant to acquaint himself
with his own powers, and with the world about him; when she smiled at
the ungainly stretching of the little limbs, and the unpractised
movement of his eyes seeking the light. Holy and sweet were the tears
which swelled into her eyes when she saw him at his mother's breast, and
could not but gaze at the fresh and divine beauty now mantling on that
mother's face, amidst the joy of this new relation. It was a delicious
moment when Hope came in, the first day that Hester sat by the fireside,
when he stopped short for a brief instant, as if arrested by the beauty
of what he saw; and then glanced towards Margaret for sympathy. It was
a delicious moment to her--the moment of that full, free, unembarrassed
glance, which she had scarcely met since the first days of their
acquaintance.
It was a pleasure to them all to see Hester well provided with luxuries.
Maria, knowing that her surgeon would not accept money from her, took
this opportunity of sending in wine. Oh, the pleasure of finding the
neglected corkscrew, and making Morris take a glass with them! The
Greys brought game, and Hester's little table was well served every day.
With what zeal did Margaret apply herself, under Morris's teaching, to
cook Hester's choice little dinners! Yes, to cook them. Margaret was
learning all Morris's arts from her; for, of two troubles which somewhat
disturbed this season of comfort, one was that it appeared too certain
that Morris must go, as Susan and Charles had gone before her. No one
had expressly declared this: it was left undiscussed, apparently by
common consent, till it should be ascertained that baby was healthy and
Hester getting strong; but the thought was in the minds of them all, and
their plans involved preparation for this.
The other trouble was, that with peace and comfort, some slight, very
slight symptoms recurred of Hester's propensity to self-torment. It
could not be otherwise. The wonder was, that for weeks and months she
had been relieved from her old enemy to the extent she had been. The
reverence with which her husband and sister regarded the temper, in
which she had borne unbounded provocation, and most unmerited adversity,
sometimes beguiled them into a hope that her troubles from within were
over for ever; but a little reflection, and some slight experience,
taught them that this was unreasonable. They remembered that the
infirmity of a lifetime was not to be wholly cured in half-a-year; and
that they must expect some recurrence of her old malady at times when
there was no immediate appeal to her magnanimity, and no present cause
for anxiety for those in whom she forgot herself.
The first time that Hester was in the drawing-room for the whole day,
Morris was laying the cloth for dinner, and Margaret was walking up and
down the room with the baby on her arm, when Hope came in. Hester
forgot everybody and everything else when her husband appeared--a fact
which Morris's benevolence was never weary of noting and commenting upon
to herself. She often wondered if ever lady loved her husband as her
young mistress did; and she smiled to herself to see the welcome that
beamed upon Hester's whole face when Hope came to take his seat beside
her on the sofa. This was in her mind to-day, when her master presently
said:
"Where is my boy? I have not seen him for hours. Why do you put him
out of his father's way? Oh, Margaret has him! Come, Margaret, yield
him up. You can have him all the hours that I am away. You do not
grudge him to me, do you?"
"My master won't have to complain, as many gentlemen do," said Morris,
"or as many gentlemen feel, if they don't complain, that he is neglected
for the sake of his baby."
"If you enjoy your dinner to-day, love," said Hester, "you must not give
me the credit of it. You and I are to sit down to our pheasant
together, they tell me. Margaret and Morris will have it that they have
both dined."
"There is little in getting a comfortable dinner ready," said Morris,
"whether it is the lady herself, or another, that looks to a trifle like
that. It is the seeing his wife so full of care and thought about her
baby as to have none to spare for him, that frets many an one who does
not like to say anything about it. Fathers cannot be so taken with a
very young baby as the mothers are, and it is mortifying to feel
themselves neglected for a newcomer. I have often seen that, my dears;
but I shall never see it here, I find."
"I do not know how you should, Morris," said Hester, in something of the
old tone, which made her sister's heart throb almost before it reached
her ear. "Margaret will save me from any such danger. Margaret takes
care that nobody shall be engrossed with the baby but herself. She has
not a thought to spare for any of us while she has baby in her arms.
The little fellow has cut us all out."
Margaret quickly transferred the infant to her brother's arm, and left
the room. She thought it best; for her heart was very full, and she
could not speak. She restrained her tears, and went into the kitchen to
busy herself about the dinner she had cooked.
"'Tis a fine pheasant, indeed, Miss Margaret, my dear, and beautifully
roasted, I am sure: and I hope you will go up and see them enjoy it. I
am so sorry, my dear, for what I said just now. I merely spoke what
came up in my mind when I felt pleased, and never thought of its
bringing on any remark. Nor was anything intended, I am sure, that
should make you look so sad: so do you go up, and take the baby again,
when they sit down to dinner, as if nothing had been said. Do, my dear,
if I may venture to say so. I will follow you with the dinner in a
minute."
"I wonder how it is, my love," said Hope, in a voice which spoke all the
tenderness of his heart; "I wonder how it is that you can endure wrong
so nobly, and that you cannot bear the natural course of events. Tell
me how it is, Hester, that you have sustained magnanimously all the
injuries and misfortunes of many months, and that you now quarrel with
Margaret's affection for our child."
"Ah why, indeed, Edward?" she replied, humbly. "Why, but that I am
unworthy that such an one as Margaret should love me and my child."
"Enough, enough. I only want to show you how I regard the case about
this new love of Margaret's. Do you not see how much happier she has
been since this little fellow was born?"
"Oh, yes."
"One may now fancy that she may be gay again. Let us remember what an
oppressed heart she had, and what it must be to her to have a new
object, so innocent and unconscious as this child, to lavish her
affection upon. Do not let us grudge her the consolation, or poison the
pleasure of this fresh interest."
"I am afraid it is done," cried Hester, in great distress. "I was
wicked--I was more cruel than any of our enemies, when I said what I
did. I may well bear with them; for, God knows, I am at times no better
than they. I have robbed my Margaret of her only comfort--spoiled her
only pleasure."
"No, no. Here she comes. Look at her."
Margaret's face was indeed serene, and she made as light of the matter
as she could, when Hester implored that she would pardon her hasty and
cruel words, and that she would show her forgiveness by continuing to
cherish the child. He must not begin to suffer already for his mother's
faults, Hester said. There could be no doubt of Margaret's forgiveness,
nor of her forgetfulness of what had been said, as far as forgetfulness
was possible. But the worst of such sayings is, that they carry in them
that which prevents their being ever quite forgotten. Hester had
effectually established a constraint in her sister's intercourse with
the baby, and imposed upon Margaret the incessant care of scrupulously
adjusting the claims of the mother and the child. The evils arising
from faulty temper may be borne, may be concealed, but can never be
fully repaired. Happy they whose part it is to endure and to conceal,
rather than to inflict, and to strive uselessly to repair!
Margaret's part was the easiest of the three, as they sat at the table--
she with the baby in her arms, and all agreeing that the time was come
for an explanation with Morris--for depending on themselves for almost
all the work of the house.
"Come, Morris," said Hester, when the cloth was removed; "you must spare
us half-an-hour. We want to consult with you. Come and sit down."
Morris came, with a foreboding heart.
"It will be no news to you," said Hope, "that we are very poor. You
know nearly as much of our affairs as we do ourselves, as it is right
that you should. We have not wished to make any further change in our
domestic plans till this little fellow was born. But now that he is
beginning to make his way in the world, and that his mother is well and
strong, we feel that we must consider of some further effort to spend
still less than we do now."
"There are two ways in which this may be done, we think, Morris," said
Hester. "We may either keep the comfort of having you with us, and
pinch ourselves more as to dress and the table--"
"Oh! ma'am, I hope you will not carry that any further."
"Well, if we do not carry that any further, the only thing to be done, I
fear, is to part with you."
"Is there no other way, I wonder," said Morris, as if thinking aloud.
"If it must be one of these ways, it certainly seems to me to be better
for ladies to work hard with good food, than to have a servant, and
stint themselves in health and strength. But who would have thought of
my young ladies coming to this?"
"It is a situation in which hundreds and thousands are placed, Morris;
and why not we, as well as they?"
"May be so, ma'am: but it grieves one, too."
"Do not grieve. I believe we all think that this parting with you is
the first real grief that our change of fortune has caused us. Somehow
or other, we have been exceedingly comfortable in our poverty. If that
had been all, we should have had a very happy year of it."
"One would desire to say nothing against what is God's will, ma'am; but
one may be allowed, perhaps, to hope that better times will come."
"I do hope it, and believe it," said her master.
"And if better times come, Morris, you will return to us. Will you
not?"
"My dear, you know nothing would make me leave you now (as you say I am
a comfort to you) if I had any right to say I would stay. I could live
upon as little as anybody, and could do almost without any wages. But
there is my poor sister, you know, ladies. She depends upon me for
everything, now that she cannot work herself: and I must earn money for
her."
"We are quite aware of that," said Margaret. "It is for your sake and
hers, quite as much as for our own, that we think we must part."
"We wish to know what you would like to do," said Hester. "Shall we try
to find a situation for you near us, or would you be happier to go down
among your old friends?"
"I had better go where I am sure of employment, ma'am. Better go down
to Birmingham at once. I should never have left it but for my young
ladies' sakes. But I should be right glad, my dears, to leave it again
for you, if you can at any time write to say you wish for me back.
There is another way I have thought of sometimes; but, of course, you
cannot have overlooked anything that could occur to me. If you would
all go to Birmingham, you have so many friends there, and my master
would be valued as he ought to be; which there is no sign of his being
in this place. I do not like this place, my dears. It is not good
enough for you."
"We think any place good enough for us where there are men and women
living," said Hope, kindly but gravely. "Others have thought as you do,
Morris, and have offered us temptations to go away; but we do not think
it right. If we go, we shall leave behind us a bad character, which we
do not deserve. If we stay, I have very little doubt of recovering my
professional character, and winning over our neighbours to think better
of us, and be kind to us again. We mean to try for it, if I should have
to hire myself out as a porter in Mr Grey's yards."
"Pray, don't say that, sir. But, indeed, I believe you are so far right
as that the good always conquers at last."
"Just so, Morris: that is what we trust. And for the sake of this
little fellow, if for nothing else, we must stand by our good name. Who
knows but that I may leave him a fine flourishing practice in this very
place, when I retire or die?--always supposing he means to follow his
father's profession."
"Sir, that is looking forward very far."
"So it is, Morris. But however people may disapprove of looking forward
too far, it is difficult to help it when they become parents. Your
mistress could tell you, if she would own the truth, that she sees her
son's manly beauty already under that little wry mouth, and that odd
button of a nose. Why may not I just as well fancy him a young
surgeon?"
"Morris would say, as she once said to me," observed Margaret,
"`Remember death, my dear; remember death.'"
"We will remember it," said Morris, "but we must remember at the same
time God's mercy in giving life. He who gave life can preserve it: and
this shall be my trust for you all, my dears, when I am far away from
you. There is a knock! I must go. Oh! Miss Margaret, who will there
be to go to the door when I am gone, but you?"
Mr Jones had knocked at the door, and left a letter. These were its
contents:--
"Sir,--I hope you will excuse the liberty I take in applying to you
for my own satisfaction. My wife and I have perceived with much
concern that we have lost much of your custom of late. We mind little
the mere falling off of custom in any quarter, in comparison with
failing to give satisfaction. We have always tried, I am sure, to
give satisfaction in our dealings with your family, sir; and if there
has been any offence, I can assure you it is unintentional, and shall
feel obliged by knowing what it is. We cannot conceive, sir, where
you get your meat, if not from us; and if you have the trouble of
buying it from a distance, I can only say we should be happy to save
you the trouble, if we knew how to serve you to your liking; for, sir,
we have a great respect for you and yours.
"Your obedient servants,
"John Jones,
"Mary Jones."
"The kind soul!" cried Hester. "What must we say to them?"
"We must set their minds at ease about our good-will to them. How that
little fellow stares about him, like a child of double his age! I do
believe I could make him look wise at my watch already. Yes, we must
set the Joneses at ease, at all events."
"But how? We must not tell them that we cannot afford to buy of them as
we did."
"No; that would be begging. We must trust to their delicacy not to
press too closely for a reason, when once assured that we respect them
as highly as they possibly can us."
"You may trust them," said Margaret, "I am convinced. They will look in
your face, and be satisfied without further question; and my advice,
therefore, is, that you do not write, but go."
"I will; and now. They shall not suffer a moment's pain that I can save
them. Good-night, my boy! What! you have not learned to kiss yet.
Well, among us all, you will soon know how, if teaching will do it.
What a spirit he has! I fancy he will turn out like Frank."