The mother smiled, while Amrie, with skilful fingers, at length untied the hard knot. “That is brave,” she said; “now look and see what there is within it.”
Amrie saw gold and silver coins, while the mother continued, “Look, child, you have worked a miracle with the farmer. I cannot understand how it has been done, but you have not wholly converted him; he still repeats what a pity it is that you have nothing; and he believes that in secret you possess a pretty little fortune, and that you only conceal it from us to try us, and see if we will accept you with nothing. We will not speak of this, his secret thought; thus an idea has come into my mind which I trust is not sinful in the eye of God. Look, these I have spared and saved in the six and thirty years we have lived together. Part of it is also an inheritance from my mother. Now take it, and say it is your own; this will make the farmer happy—especially as he has suspected something of the kind. Why do you look so confused? Trust me, when I tell you that you can do it without the least injustice. I have examined it upon every side. Now conceal it, and say not a word to the contrary. Give me no thanks, not a single word, for it is all one, whether my child receives it now, or later, and it will give my husband a life-long joy. Now, fasten it up again.”
Early the next morning, Amrie told John all that his parents had said, and all that they had given her.
John burst into a hearty laugh. “Heaven forgive me,” he said, “of my mother I could easily believe this—but from my father! I could never have dreamed of such a thing. You are a true witch. The best of it is, that neither of them is to know what the other has done; each would deceive the other, and both are deceived, for each will believe that you really had in secret the money they each have given you. It is too good! It is enough to make one die with laughing!”
In the midst of all this joy, there was yet mingled much anxiety.
CHAPTER XX.
FAMILY WAYS.
IT is not morality that governs society, but a hardened form of the same, called custom.
As society now exists, an infringement of morality is more easily pardoned than a departure from custom. Happy the time and the people, when custom and morality will be one and the same! All differences, great and small, in the mass, and in private life, have their source in the contradiction of these two—and the hardened form of custom soon stamps anew the inward flow of morality with its own impress and form.
Here, in this little history of humble men, that the great world would push aside, the same principle ruled.