David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

This meeting and parting at that time had been all that Clifton could desire, except that she had refused to bind herself by a promise to him, and her aunt had sustained her in this, as was perhaps right, knowing all that she knew. Without her promise Clifton had trusted her entirely, and doubtless she meant to be true to him.

But temptation came in the form of wealth and family and fashion, and her aunt was at hand to show her the advantages of these things. Indeed, it must be said the young lady saw them for herself only too clearly, and was glad that she had no promise to break to secure them.

If there was any comfort in the knowledge that her father was disappointed and indignant at what she had done without his knowledge or consent, Clifton had that comfort, but it possibly did not go far to help him. He said little about it, but it went hard with him for a while.

However, he did not make his misery an excuse for neglecting his duty. He was past the age for such folly now and besides, he was too really interested in his work not to find it a resource in the time of his trouble, and the changes which his sister had feared might follow such disappointment, did not come.

“And after all,” she said, comforting herself, “he will get over it in time.” Which was perfectly true.

The new dam and the new establishments of various sorts, which followed its completion, did much for Gershom. That is to say, they increased the population and the wealth of the place, and made it more than ever the centre of the surrounding country as to all business transactions. But it is a question whether it made it a pleasanter place of residence for any of our friends there. A state of transition from a country village to a country town of some importance is never pleasant for the old residents for a time. But progress is to be desired for all that, and Gershom is now an incorporated town with a mayor and council-men of its own, and on the whole it may be considered that its prosperity is established on a good foundation.

Changes came to the people also, some of them to be rejoiced over, and some of them not. The High-School lost Mr Burnet as a teacher, which, considering his utter inability to fall in with certain new-fangled notions as to schools and schoolmasters, which the influx of new-comers brought with it, was not a bad thing for him, whatever it might be for the school. He went home to Scotland to take possession of some money left to him by an elder brother, who had been a rich man. He came back, however, to make his home in Canada, as people who have lived in it for any length of time are almost sure to do.

He brought back with him his two daughters, bonnie lassies of fifteen and sixteen, and took up his abode with them in the house that had been the parsonage. The big house on the hill answered the purpose of a parsonage now. His daughters were nice, merry girls, but they were quite ignorant of housekeeping matters, and they did not get on very well with the new ways of the place for a while. They had, perhaps, been too much restrained by the friends who had brought them up, for some of the staid people of Gershom thought that they did not know how to use their liberty wisely.

Perhaps their father thought so too, and that he needed help to guide them; at any rate, to the surprise of most people, he asked Miss Betsey Holt to come and take care of them, and of himself also, and after some hesitation, caused by doubt as to how “mother and Cynthy and Ben would get along without her,” she consented.

All eyes were on the household for a time, for dutiful submission on the part of the young step-daughters was considered doubtful by a good many of their friends. It is likely that Betsey had her own troubles with them till they knew her better, but no one in Gershom was the wiser for anything that she told them, and things righted themselves in time, as they always do where good and sensible people are concerned.