“If I thought so, Sir,”——said the poor boy, looking wistfully at the glittering coin. “If I was quite sure there could be no harm——, but I must speak first to mother about it, Sir! She has seen better days once, and she is sadly afraid of my ever taking charity. Mother mends my clothes, and teaches me herself, and works very hard in other ways, but she is quite bed-ridden, and we have scarcely anything but the trifle I make by working in the fields. It is very difficult to get a job at all sometimes, and if you could put me in the way of earning that money, Sir, it would make mother very happy. She is a little particular, and would not taste a morsel that I could get by asking for it.”

“That is being very proud!” said Harry.

“No, Sir! it is not from pride,” replied Evan; “but mother says a merciful God has provided for her many years, and she will not begin to distrust Him now. Her hands are always busy, and her heart is always cheerful. She rears many little plants by her bedside, which we sell, and she teaches a neighbour’s children, besides sewing for [168] ]any one who will employ her, for mother’s maxim always was, that there can be no such thing as an idle Christian.”

“Very true!” said Lady Harriet. “Even the apostles were mending their nets and labouring hard, whenever they were not teaching. Either the body or the mind should always be active.”

“If you saw mother, that is exactly her way, for she does not eat the bread of idleness. Were a stranger to offer us a blanket or a dinner in charity, she would rather go without any than take it. A very kind lady brought her a gown one day, but mother would only have it if she were allowed to knit as many stockings as would pay for the stuff. I dare not take a penny more for my work than is due, for she says, if once I begin receiving alms, I might get accustomed to it.”

“That is the good old Scotch feeling of former days,” observed Major Graham. “It was sometimes carried too far then, but there is not enough of it now. Your mother should have lived fifty years ago.”

“You may say so, indeed, Sir! We never had a drop of broth from the soup-kitchen all winter, and many a day we shivered without a fire, though the society offered her sixpence a-week for coals, but she says ‘the given morsel is soon done;’ and now, many of our neighbours who wasted what they got, feel worse off than we, who are accustomed to suffer want, and to live upon our honest labour. Long ago, if mother went out to tea with any of our neighbours, she always took her own tea along with us.”

“But that is being prouder than anybody else,” observed Frank, smiling. “If my grandmama goes out to a tea-party, she allows her friends to provide the fare.”

“Very likely, Sir! but that is different when people can give as good as they get. Last week a kind neighbour sent us some nice loaf bread, but mother made me take it back, with her best thanks, and she preferred our own oat [169] ]cake. She is more ready to give than to take, Sir, and divides her last bannock, sometimes, with anybody who is worse off than ourselves.”

“Poor fellow!” said Frank, compassionately; “how much you must often have suffered!”