“We wish to know what you would like to do,” said Hester. “Shall we try to find a situation for you near us, or would you be happier to go down among your old friends?”
“I had better go where I am sure of employment, ma’am. Better go down to Birmingham at once. I should never have left it but for my young ladies’ sakes. But I should be right glad, my dears, to leave it again for you, if you can at any time write to say you wish for me back. There is another way I have thought of sometimes; but, of course, you cannot have overlooked anything that could occur to me. If you would all go to Birmingham, you have so many friends there, and my master would be valued as he ought to be; which there is no sign of his being in this place. I do not like this place, my dears. It is not good enough for you.”
“We think any place good enough for us where there are men and women living,” said Hope, kindly but gravely. “Others have thought as you do, Morris, and have offered us temptations to go away; but we do not think it right. If we go, we shall leave behind us a bad character, which we do not deserve. If we stay, I have very little doubt of recovering my professional character, and winning over our neighbours to think better of us, and be kind to us again. We mean to try for it, if I should have to hire myself out as a porter in Mr Grey’s yards.”
“Pray, don’t say that, sir. But, indeed, I believe you are so far right as that the good always conquers at last.”
“Just so, Morris: that is what we trust. And for the sake of this little fellow, if for nothing else, we must stand by our good name. Who knows but that I may leave him a fine flourishing practice in this very place, when I retire or die?—always supposing he means to follow his father’s profession.”
“Sir, that is looking forward very far.”
“So it is, Morris. But however people may disapprove of looking forward too far, it is difficult to help it when they become parents. Your mistress could tell you, if she would own the truth, that she sees her son’s manly beauty already under that little wry mouth, and that odd button of a nose. Why may not I just as well fancy him a young surgeon?”
“Morris would say, as she once said to me,” observed Margaret, “‘Remember death, my dear; remember death.’”
“We will remember it,” said Morris, “but we must remember at the same time God’s mercy in giving life. He who gave life can preserve it: and this shall be my trust for you all, my dears, when I am far away from you. There is a knock! I must go. Oh! Miss Margaret, who will there be to go to the door when I am gone, but you?”
Mr Jones had knocked at the door, and left a letter. These were its contents:—