Ella was silent. Katie proceeded,—
“Surely man cannot remove that day, Ella, though you say nothing. Let farmer Duff do all he can; let every foot of land be tilled that will nourish an ear of barley, still the day may come; and what else can man do?”
Ella made no direct reply. Presently she observed that Dan and his wife seemed not to care for the evils of such a time, since they lived by choice on the poorest food, and provided themselves with nothing that they could lose in the worst of seasons.
“They are content, always content,” observed the widow; “and they say they have all that is necessary; and they wonder that we can trouble ourselves to obtain anything that is not necessary: but I tell them we do not; I think a chimney, and a window, and bedding, and decent clothes all necessary for the children.”
“Unless you would have them live like pigs in a sty,” observed Ella. “When God gave us the charge of these little ones, he gave us no leave that ever I heard of to expose them to sickness and hardship, and to corrupt them by letting them live like brutes. By making them helpless and quick in their feelings, he has shown as plainly as if he sent a prophet to tell us, that we are to tend them as carefully and keep them as innocent as ever our labour and forethought can help us to do. Whenever I see a little one grovelling in dirt, or pining in want, or given to vice such as it should not even have heard of, I always feel as if God’s plain-spoken message had been at some time misunderstood; either that the trust has been wrongly undertaken or wrongly managed.”
“I knew you thought so, Ella; and yet what can we say when parents see and mourn all this, and cannot help themselves?”
“We can only say that if both father and mother have considered and judged for the best, and worked hard, and denied themselves, no fault rests with them. Where the fault lies in such a case is a thing that Angus and I have talked over many a time. But such a case does not concern those we were speaking of—those who are content with destitution, when they might have comfort.”
The widow looked on her children and sighed.
“Nay,” said Ella, smiling, “there is no need for you to sigh. You might carry your bairns to Inverary, and match them with the duke’s, and not a stronger, or fairer, or more innocent would you find among them all.”
“May it please Providence to keep them so!”