"Really, Mam'selle?"
"Well, I used to be prouder than I am now. It is a heap of trouble to keep clean, but it's going to stay where it is. When things cost what that did, they stay. It's like Nick and the little red cow——"
"And me!" put in Donelle softly.
"You ought to be ashamed, Donelle," Jo turned indignant eyes upon her, "putting yourself beside stoves and dogs and cows."
"And other things that cost too much. Oh! Mamsey."
And still Law stayed on, the peace in his eyes growing each day deeper, surer. He felt, in a vague way, as Norval had, the sense of living for the first time in his life. The wood-cabin he called the co-operative workshop. In time he got Donelle to play there for him. At first she tried and failed. Weeping, she looked at him helplessly and put her violin aside.
"You have no right," he said to her with infinite tenderness, "to let any earthly thing kill the gift God gave you."
The philosophy that had upheld poor Law had given him courage to pass it on to others. It now drove Donelle to her duty.
Old Revelle had prophesied that suffering would develop her and her talent; and it was doing so. Her face became wonderfully strong and fine as the months dragged on and the Fear grew in waiting hearts. In forgetting herself she made place for others and they came to her faithfully. Her music was heard in many a hill cabin; down by the river, where the older men worked, while their thoughts were overseas. She taught little children, helped make the pitiful black dresses which meant so much to the lonely poor who had given their all and had so little with which to show respect to their sacred dead.
Jo watched her girl with eyes that often ached from unshed tears.