“I’m afraid, from all accounts, that it is going to be hard work to get anything, but we shall see. It is a good thing to have friends, mother.”
“And this Mr. Willett, he is a good friend? You remember I haven’t seen him.”
“He is a good friend,” Agnes answered slowly, “and so are the M’Cleans. You saw Archie?”
“Yes, a fine lad.” She laid her hand gently on Agnes’s head. “What did he tell me but that my little girl would have the chance of becoming a meenister’s wife?”
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said, ‘My little lass is far too young.’”
“Am I so young? Seventeen, mother.”
“So you are. I did not count in the years you have been away from me, but you will not leave me now, my lamb? Not yet?”