“I wouldn’t say such words, Sally,” answered Barbara, with some warmth. “No one can tell a mother, ‘Thy heart shall not remember.’ I have laid in earth five children, and do you think I ever slunk away from heartache by forgetting them? No, indeed! I would have counted that treason against my own soul.”
“God’s blessing! there is none wants to contradict you, Barbara. Don’t be so hasty, woman. But you know there has been death and weeping in many houses besides Nanna’s this winter.”
“To be sure,” acknowledged Barbara. “Death has asked no man’s leave to enter; he has gone into the rich man’s house as well as into poor Nanna’s hut.”
“Every door is wide enough for a coffin.”
“Yes; and the minister said last Sabbath that it was this which dissatisfied us with these habitations of clay, and made us lift our eyes to those eternal in the heavens.”
“Well, then, to come back to David,” said Sally, “he is good, and able to marry. He has saved money, no doubt. Some young men spend their last bawbee, and just live between ebb and flow. That isn’t David Borson. Besides, Barbara, you ought to tell him how people are talking.”
“I may do that. David is imprudent, and Nanna is too miserable to care. Well, then, those who kindle the fire must put up with the smoke; yet, for all that, I shall have a word or two for him, and that very soon.”
David had been at sea all night, and while this conversation was going on he was sleeping; but in the afternoon, as Barbara saw him preparing to go to Nanna’s, she said:
“Stay a minute, David Borson. I want to speak to you. I had good news early this morning. My son’s ship was met not so far away, and he may get home at any time, and me not thinking of it.”
“I am glad to hear it, Barbara. Then, also, you will want my room. I must look for a new place, and that is bad for me.”