Janet's Love and Service Part 19

But no selfishness mingled with her stepfather's love for Emily. It cost him much to decide to send her from him for a while, but he did decide to do so. For he could not but see that Emily's happiness was little cared for by his mother, even yet. She could not now, as in the old time, take refuge in her mother's room. She was helpful about the house too, and could not often be spared to her friends up the hill, or in the village; for old Mrs Snow, much as she hated to own it, could no longer do all things with her own hands, as she used to do. To be sure, she could have had help any day, or every day in the year; but it was one of the old lady's "notions" not to be able "to endure folks around her." And, besides, "what was the use of Emily Arnold?" And so, what with one thing and another, little Emily's cheek began to grow pale; and the wilful gaze with which she used to watch her father's home-coming, came back to her eyes again.

"There is no kind o' use for Emily's being kept at work," said her father. "She ain't strong; and there's Hannah Lovejoy would be glad to come and help, and I'd be glad to pay her for it. Emily may have a good time as well as not."

But his mother was not to be moved.

"Girls used to have a good time and work too, when I was young. Emily Arnold is strong enough, if folks would let her alone, and not put notions in her head. And as for Hannah, I'll have none of her."

So Mr Snow saw that if Emily was to have a good time it must be elsewhere; and he made up his mind to the very best thing he could have done for her. He fitted her out, and sent her to Mount Holyoke seminary; that school of schools for earnest, ambitions New England girls. And a good time she had there, enjoying all that was pleasant, and never heeding the rest. There were the first inevitable pangs of home-sickness, making her father doubt whether he had done best for his darling after all. But, in a little, her letters were merry and healthful enough. One would never have found out from them anything of the hards.h.i.+ps of long stairs and the fourth storey, or of extra work on recreation day. Pleasantly and profitably her days pa.s.sed, and before she returned home at the close of the year, Mrs Snow had gone, where the household work is done without weariness. Her father would fain have kept her at home then, but he made no objections to her return to school as she wished, and he was left to the silent ministrations of Hannah Lovejoy in the deserted home again.

By the unanimous voice of his brethren in the church, he was, on the departure of Deacons Fish and Slowcome, elected to fill the place of one of them, and in his own way he magnified the office. He was "lonesome, awful lonesome," at home; but cheerfulness came back to him again, and there is no one more gladly welcomed at the minister's house, and at many another house, than he.

There have been changes in the minister's household, too. When his course in college was over, Arthur came out to the rest. He lingered one delightful summer in Merleville, and then betook himself to Canada, to study his profession of the law. For Arthur, wise as the Merleville people came to think him, was guilty of one great folly in their eye.

He could never, he said, be content to lose his nationality and become a Yankee; so, for the sake of living in the Queen's dominions, he went to Canada; a place, in their estimation, only one degree more desirable as a place of residence than Greenland or Kamtschatka.

That was five years ago. Arthur has had something of a struggle since then. By sometimes teaching dull boys Latin, sometimes acting as sub-editor for a daily paper, and at all times living with great economy, he has got through his studies without running much in debt; and has entered his profession with a fair prospect of success. He has visited Merleville once since he went away, and his weekly letter is one of the greatest pleasures that his father and sisters have to enjoy.

Norman and Harry have both left home, too. Mr Snow did his best to make a farmer first of the one and then of the other, but he failed. To college they went in spite of poverty, and having pa.s.sed through honourably, they went out into the world to s.h.i.+ft for themselves.

Norman writes hopefully from the far West. He is an engineer, and will be a rich man one day he confidently a.s.serts, and his friends believe him with a difference.

"He will make money enough," Janet says, "but as to his keeping it, that's another matter."

Harry went to Canada with the intention of following Arthur's example and devoting himself to the law, but changed his mind, and is now in the merchant's counting-room; and sends home presents of wonderful shawls and gowns to Janet and his sisters, intending to impress them with the idea that he is very rich indeed.

Those left at home, are content now to be without the absent ones; knowing that they are doing well their share in the world's work, and certain that whatever comes to them in their wanderings, whether prosperity to elate, or adversity to depress them, their first and fondest thought is, and ever will be, of the loving and beloved ones at home.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

The Indian-summer-time was come again. The gorgeous glory of the autumn was gone, but so, for one day, at least, was its dreariness. There was no "wailing wind" complaining among the bare boughs of the elms. The very pines were silent. The yellow leaves, still lingering on the beech-trees in the hollow, rustled, now and then, as the brown nuts fell, one by one, on the brown leaves beneath. The frosts, sharp and frequent, had changed the torrent of a month ago into a gentle rivulet, whose murmur could scarce be heard as far as the gate over which Graeme Elliott leaned, gazing dreamily upon the scene before her.

She was thinking how very lovely it was, and how very dear it had become to her. Seen through "the smoky light," the purple hills beyond the water seemed not so far-away as usual. The glistening spire of the church on the hill, and the gleaming grave-stones, seemed strangely near. It looked but a step over to the village, whose white houses were quite visible among the leafless trees, and many farm-houses, which one could never see in summer for the green leaves, were peeping out everywhere from between the hills.

"There is no place like Merleville," Graeme thinks in her heart. It is home to them all now. There were few but pleasant a.s.sociations connected with the hills, and groves, and homesteads over which she was gazing. It came very vividly to her mind, as she stood there looking down, how she had stood with the bairns that first Sabbath morning on the steps of the old meeting-house; and she strove to recall her feeling of shyness and wonder at all that she saw, and smiled to think how the faces turned to them so curiously that day were become familiar now, and some of them very dear. Yes; Merleville was home to Graeme. Not that she had forgotten the old home beyond the sea. But the thought of it came with no painful longing. Even the memory of her mother brought now regret, indeed, and sorrow, but none of the loneliness and misery of the first days of loss, for the last few years had been very happy years to them all.

And yet, as Graeme stood gazing over to the hills and the village, a troubled, vexed look came over her face, and, with a gesture of impatience, she turned away from it all and walked up and down among the withered leaves outside the gate with an impatient tread. Something troubled her with an angry trouble that she could not forget; and though she laughed a little, too, as she muttered to herself, it was not a pleasant laugh, and the vexed look soon came back again, indeed, it never went away.

"It is quite absurd," she murmured, as she came within the gate, and then turned and leaned over it. "I won't believe it; and yet--oh, dear!

what shall we ever do if it happens?"

"It's kind o' pleasant here, ain't it?" said a voice behind her. Graeme started more violently than there was any occasion for. It was only Mr Snow who had been in the study with her father for the last hour, and who was now on his way home. Graeme scarcely answered him, but stood watching him, with the troubled look deepening on her face, as he went slowly down the road.

Mr Snow had changed a good deal within these few years. He had grown a great deal greyer and graver, and Graeme thought, with a little pang of remorse, as she saw him disappear round the turn of the road, that she had, by her coldness, made him all the graver. And yet she only half regretted it; and the vexed look came back to her face again, as she gathered up her work that had fallen to the ground and turned toward the house.

There was no one in the usual sitting-room, no one in the bright kitchen beyond, and, going to the foot of the stairs, Graeme raises her voice, which has an echo of impatience in it still, and calls:

"Mrs Nasmyth."

For Janet is oftener called Mrs Nasmyth than the old name, even by the bairns now, except at such times as some wonderful piece of coaxing is to be done, and then she is Janet, the bairn's own Janet still. There was no coaxing echo in Graeme's voice, however, but she tried to chase the vexed shadow from her face as her friend came slowly down the stairs.

"Are you not going to sit down?" asked Graeme, as she seated herself on a low stool by the window. "I wonder where the bairns are?"

"The bairns are gone down the brae," said Mrs Nasmyth; "and I'm just going to sit down to my seam a wee while."

But she seemed in no hurry to sit down, and Graeme sat silent for a little, as she moved quietly about the room.

"Janet," said she, at last, "what brings Deacon Snow so often up here of late?"

Janet's back was toward Graeme, and, without turning round, she answered:

"I dinna ken that he's oftener here than he used to be. He never stayed long away. He was ben the house with the minister. I didna see him."

There was another pause.

"Janet," said Graeme again, "what do you think Mrs Greenleaf told me all Merleville is saying?"

Janet expressed no curiosity.

"They say Deacon Snow wants to take you down the brae."

Still Mrs Nasmyth made no answer.

"He hasna ventured to hint such a thing?" exclaimed Graeme interrogatively.

"No' to me," said Janet, quietly, "but the minister."

"The minister! He's no' blate! To think of him holding up his face to my father and proposing the like of that! And what did my father say?"

"I dinna ken what he said to him; but to me he said he was well pleased that it should be so, and--"

"Janet!" Graeme's voice expressed consternation as well as indignation, Mrs Nasmyth took no notice, but seated herself to her stocking-darning.

"Janet! If you think of such a thing for a moment, I declare I'll take second thoughts and go away myself."

"Weel, I aye thought you might have done as weel to consider a wee afore you gave Mr Foster his answer," said Janet, not heeding Graeme's impatient answer.

"Janet! A sticket minister!"

"My dear, he's no' a sticket minister. He pa.s.sed his examinations with great credit to himself. You hae your father's word for that, who was there to hear him. And he's a grand scholar--that's weel kent; and though he mayna hae the gift o' tongues like some folk, he may do a great deal of good in the world notwithstanding. And they say he has gotten the charge of a fine school now, and is weel off. I aye thought you might do worse than go with him. He's a good lad, and you would have had a comfortable home with him."

"Thank you. But when I marry it won't be to get a comfortable home.

I'm content with the home I have."

"Ay, if you could be sure of keeping it," said Janet, with a sigh; "but a good man and a good home does not come as an offer ilka day."

"The deacon needna be feared to leave his case in your hands, it seems,"

said Graeme, laughing, but not pleasantly.

"Miss Graeme, my dear," said Mrs Nasmyth, gravely, "there's many a thing to be said of that matter; but it must be said in a different spirit from what you are manifesting just now. If I'm worth the keeping here, I'm worth the seeking elsewhere, and Deacon Snow has as good a right as another."