“Oh! pshaw! you can never do it; and some other plan must be thought of,” said the visitor, reflectively.
“Yes, it is real incapacity on my part—a want of the requisite physical strength. I am not constitutionally weak; but the muscles of my arms and chest have never been trained to great or continued exertion, and strengthened by that process—more is the pity! Look at my wrists.”
And Rosalie, smilingly, tearfully, held out two delicate, fair, tapering arms. And Mrs. Attridge took and held them affectionately, while she said—
“I know—I know it would be useless and cruel to expect hard work of you; and yet the expense oughtn’t to come on him, neither, just now. I have been thinking, since I sat here, of an Irish family of the name of Malony, who live in a shanty about a quarter of a mile from this, on my road home. The man works at our furnace, and the woman washes for bachelors. Now, although they are thriving, she and her family are always ragged, because she is as ignorant as a savage of the use of a needle; and, besides, she says she hasn’t time to sew. Now,” said Mrs. Attridge, half laughingly, as she arose to depart, “suppose you were to barter work with Judy Malony, and pay her for washing by making up clothing for her children? At any rate, I will call and see Judy on my way home, and send her over to you.”
Rosalie cordially thanked her kind friend, and held her hand, and felt unwilling to allow her to depart.
“I shall send Billy over with more fresh milk this evening. And you must not mind his grumbling—he grumbles at me and Mr. Attridge all day long sometimes, and won’t allow us to touch a thing in the garden till he thinks proper, without a deal of grumbling.”
Mrs. Attridge, after promising Rosalie to walk over and see her often, and spend whole days whenever it was possible, took leave, and departed.
That evening Mark Sutherland returned home sooner than usual. His countenance was cheerful with good news, and he threw into Rosalie’s lap a packet of letters and papers from home—the first that had been received since their separation from their friends.
There was a letter from Colonel Ashley, full of kind wishes, and something more substantial in the shape of a cheque on the St. Louis bank, for his niece. He informed them that he was again alone—that his son, St. Gerald, having lost his election, had, under the disappointment, yielded to the wishes of his wife, and taken her to her Southern home; and that he expected his own eldest daughter, now a widow, to return and take the direction of his household.
There was also a letter from Valeria to Rose, and one from Lincoln to Mark.