Belle Murdoch had now reached her sixteenth year. She was tall, well-formed, fair, and a picture of perfect health. No allusion to her going out to service had yet been made. But the family expenses becoming each year heavier, the proposal so much dreaded by Mrs. Murdoch at length came.
Wullie had been ailing for a month, and he felt somewhat despondent. So one evening when the children were in bed, and husband and wife were sitting by the cheerful fire, Jeannie busied with mending little Davie's clothes, Wullie broached the subject as gently as he could.
"Ye are aye warking, Jeannie," he said, "and I am no idle when I am weel, and still I hae muckle to do to gie my family a' the comforts that I would like to gie them. I misdoot the judgment we use in keeping Belle at hame. She is a strang healthy lass noo, and I dinna see hoo I am to keep my heid aboon water unless the lassies as they get age and strength gang to service as ithers do, or find a better way to earn honest pennies."
"Weel, Wullie, I wouldna mind the lass gaen to service but for the way it has turned oot wi' Jamie. He will, nae doot, hae the sculing o' a born gentleman, and so be fitted to win his bread like ither gentlemen; and it looks no quite right to hae ane o' the same family oot at service, and that ane a lass, forbye."
"I see, wifie, I see. And I hae thought o' the same thing. But right is right, and wrang is wrang; and rather than we s'ould gang beyond oor means and mak debts, we might better let her gang to a gude place."
"That is o'er true," said Jeannie, "and if things get muckle waur we'll hae to sacrifice oor wishes to oor necessities."
A few days after this conversation Farmer Lindsay came to honest Wullie's cottage. "Mistress Murdoch, I hae come to ask a favor," he began. "The gude-wife is taen ill, and we are pressed wi' the wark; will ye be sae kind as to let Belle come and stop wi' us a wee while till the wife is on her feet again?"
"Oh, ay, she can gang, and we are glad to oblige ye. Ye will find her no afraid o' wark; and she kens hoo to tak hold o' things as well as maist lassies o' her age."
Accordingly Belle made a few hasty preparations, and went immediately to Farmer Lindsay's. Mr. Lindsay conducted her to his wife's room. "Noo ye needna fash your heid aboot the wark," said he. "I hae brought ye a strang lass wi' willing hands, and a cheerfu' face that it will do your een gude to look at."