"You have wealth of clothes, no doubt; enough to last you for a while; so there need be no outlay for that."
"And we have our own furniture—too much, I suppose for your little room. We can sell the overplus when a push comes. I do not think anything could suit us better than your kind offer."
"I have heard," said Peggy, "that the folk hereabouts think you will be getting up a subscription."
"They are very much mistaken," said Jane; "the hardest living is preferable to that. I wish you could say that Melbourne, or any part of Australia, would do for us. Everybody was surprised when you returned to Swinton so suddenly."
"Well, I could send the bairns more money from Melbourne than I can make for them here, and no doubt the folk thought me foolish to leave such a place; but what good was the money to the poor things when there was no management, for the old man is but silly, and the bairns had mostly the upper hand of him, though whiles they did catch it. I have had my own ado with Tam for the last two years. I think I have got the victory now; but I must try and keep it. So, as grandfather dreads the water, I think I will stop in this country while he is to the fore, and meantime the lads and lasses must have their schooling and Tam his trade. But I keep on clavering about my own concerns, while you are in doubt and difficulties about yours. When do you leave Cross Hall?"
"I should like to leave on Wednesday, for my cousin comes to take possession on that day, and Elsie cannot bear any one to see us bidding farewell to our dear old home."
"I cannot just flit before Thursday."
"Well, I suppose we must stay to welcome the new owner; I have no objection to doing so."
"It may be painful to your feelings, Miss Melville, but yet I think it would be but right. There are things you may mention to the new man that would do good to them that are left behind you. That poor blind widow, Jeanie Weir, that you send her dinner to every day, would miss her dole if it was not kept up; and I know there are more than her that you want to speak a good word for. I hear no ill of this Maister Francis; and though we all grudge him the kingdom he has come into, it may be that he will rule it worthily."