"That is just it," said Therese, roused and interested and greatly comforted by the old man's quick comprehension of her trial. "Mother has always been in my thoughts. When I have earned money, it has been for her. When anything nice was given me or anything pleasant happened, half the pleasure was in telling her about it or saving it to share with her. It was just the same with what I learned, and I was always thinking of the time when we could have a little home together, and now it is all taken away."
"And is that the worst of it?" asked Hector, gently. "Don't say any more unless you like, my child, but I am an old man, and perhaps it may lighten your poor heart to talk to me. Isn't there something harder still?"
"Yes, indeed," said Therese. "It does seem so hard that, after all, mother should have gone and left me; for, Mr. McGregor, I have been a dutiful child as far as I knew how. I loved mother beyond all things, and now she has gone and left me for that man who never did her anything but harm. I can't help feeling hard and bitter toward her, not if I try ever so much.
"There is another thing that I suppose ought not to trouble me, but it does," continued Therese, after a little pause, "and that is the disgrace. I never minded it—I never thought much about it before. But now it seems as if I should never dare to look anybody in the face again. I feel as though I should like to go clear away from every one who has ever known me or heard of my father and mother. You know Miss Perkins was here yesterday; and when she and Miss Baby were out in the garden, I heard her say to Miss Baby, 'Of course Mrs. Tremaine will not want her again, after she has been mixed up in such a disgraceful affair. I wonder you should keep her. I think the poorhouse is good enough for her.'"
"Miss Perkins is not worth minding," said Hector. "If you are going to let your peace be blighted by the breath of such as she, my lass, you will never have any, for you will find that kind of people everywhere. Now, have we got to the bottom of the trouble?"
"I believe so."
"Well, my lamb, I'll not deny that they are great and sore troubles to fall on a young thing like you, but I think there is 'balm in Gilead' for them all. As to your being disgraced, we may as well call the thing by its right name. You must just make up your mind not to be cast down by that. It is a cross, and it is to be borne, as other crosses are borne, by the help of God's grace; and being thus borne, you may make it into a blessing. Really good people will not think less of you for your misfortunes, but there are those who rejoice in iniquity of all sorts, and such will be ready to cast up your parents' sins against you, specially if you go wrong.
"But if you resolutely and steadily do your duty, the matter will soon be overlooked and forgotten, or only remembered to your credit. Above all, don't let it embitter you. That was the great mistake your poor mother made, to my thinking."
"I know," said Therese; "she would not go to church, or even to the village to see her mother, because she said everybody looked down on her, and said, 'There goes Tone Beaubien's wife.' And now I suppose they will say, 'There goes Tone Beaubien's daughter.'"
"Never mind if they do. There used to be an old college in Aberdeen—Marischal * College it was called—with these words carved over the door: