"Lassie, I cannot work for Mrs. Thorpe any longer."
Margaret sprang to her feet and stood like a young deer, with head erect and dilated nostrils.
"Mother, what has happened? Tell me what has happened."
"It is nothing, lass, nothing at all, only Mrs. Thorpe must have someone who can spend all her time at the parsonage. She does not know how often I have been away, nor that I have spent the nights here with you and Jamie. She was displeased to-day when she found me gone."
Disappointment keen and sharp, anger wild and unreasoning, met in the girl's heart. Passionate, turbulent Margaret!
"Come, lassie, don't take it so hard; we can find some other way after a time, perhaps."
"Yes, mother, you can go to the pastor again with your trouble. You believed him to be so good a man. Good!--how I hate, hate and detest good people! They talk of helping the poor and needy--we have been poor, mother, poor and in need ever since I can remember--many times we have been hungry, and Jamie has never had the help that he should have had--else he might now be strong as other boys; and what have these good people of the church done for us? This man, your pious pastor, came here and offered you this place, and now his wife, the detestable hypocrite, has turned you off. Good people! Oh, I wish some great wave would sweep them from the face of the earth!"
"Margaret, Margaret, girl, this is terrible; you must not, Margaret!"
"Yes, mother, it is terrible; terrible for me to say what I think, but you know it is true. Those people have been good to your face; they have talked and sympathized, but what has anyone of them done for us? Not one of them would lift a finger or go one step out of his way to help us."
The girl's face was transformed with passion, and there was a glitter in her eyes that even the mother had never seen before.