David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

After that Miss Elizabeth took a letter which she had that day received from her brother Clifton, and read bits of it aloud. It was a very amusing letter, she seemed to think, and so did the minister, but Katie did not understand all the allusions in it, and missed the point. And besides, Clifton Holt was not a favourite with her. She was a little scornful of a lad who seemed to care so little for the opportunities he had, and who did so little good work with them. He was idle, she thought, and conceited, and she could not but wonder at Miss Elizabeth’s delight in him, and listened with some impatience to the discussion of him and his affairs that followed the reading of the letter.

“To be sure he is her brother, and she must make the best of him,” said Katie.

By and by Mr Maxwell rose to go away, and Miss Elizabeth bade him good-night in the sitting-room, and did not go with him to the hall, as was her way usually with visitors who were going away. Then she said she had to see Sally about something, and was so long away that Katie had time to get fairly into her story, and so she read on after she came in again, and it was a good while before she noticed that her friend was gazing with a strange, fixed look into the embers, and that her roses had paled sadly since Mr Burnet had praised them when they first came in. But she smiled brightly enough when she turned and met Katie’s wistful look.

“Well! How do you like it, Katie? But we must do something besides reading to-morrow, dear, or grannie will not be pleased.”

And then she went on to tell of some pretty fancy-work that they were to learn together, and was so full of it, and of all they were to do the next three days, that Katie forgot her grave looks for that night. As the days went on, and she saw how feeble Mr Holt had become, she did not wonder at her sadness, and it did not come into Katie’s mind that there could be any other cause for her sadness and her grave looks than her father’s illness gave.

“Except, perhaps, her brother may not be doing so well as he ought. And that is enough of itself to make her sad,” said Katie. “For what should I do if it were our Davie?”

Katie had a pleasant visit in many ways. The leisure was delightful to her. They had a drive every day. Sometimes Mr Holt went with them, and then they had the large sleigh and a pair of horses, and sometimes Katie laughed, and made Miss Elizabeth laugh too, pretending that she was a rich lady riding in her own sleigh, and taking her friends for a drive. But she liked it best when Miss Elizabeth drove her own horse Lion, and they went alone together. It seemed to Katie that the talks they had at such times, in the keen, clear winter air, were different from the talks they sometimes fell into sitting by the fireside, when all the rest had gone to bed and they had the home to themselves. Under the bright sunshine they seemed to get away from Gershom and its news and its troubles and vexations, into a wider and brighter world, and some of the things that Miss Elizabeth said to her then, Katie told herself she would never forget while she lived.

There were visitors now and then, and at such times, if they were strangers to her, Katie took her book into a corner, or into Sally’s bright kitchen, and read it there; but if the visitors were her friends as well, she stayed and enjoyed their visits also. Just one thing happened that it was not pleasant to think about afterward. Indeed it had been very unpleasant at the time, and Katie had some trouble in deciding whether or not she should say anything about it to grannie and her mother when she went home.

This was a visit made one day to Elizabeth by Mrs Jacob Holt. Katie did not go away this time, because she was afraid it might not please her friend, but she did not join in the conversation. She sat beyond the flower-stand in the bay-window, reading and knitting; but she was not so interested in her book as not to hear something of what was said. Mrs Jacob told some village news, and then spoke about Clifton, and about a new dress that was to be finished for her to-day, and much more of the same kind.

It was not Mrs Jacob’s fault that the conversation took the turn it did. It was the squire, who questioned her about Jacob, and about various matters connected with their business; and then he said something about Silas Bean, who had got hurt in his employment, and the difficulty was to make him understand what Silas Bean should be doing at the Varney place with two yoke of oxen, and what Jacob had to do with it. Elizabeth reminded him that Jacob had bought the Varney place, and that Mark Varney had gone away, and tried to end the discussion of the matter. But Mrs Jacob went still on to remind him of the Gershom Manufacturing Company, that would no doubt be formed by and by, and how Jacob hated to have time lost, and was taking advantage of the snow to have stones and timber drawn that would be needed in the building of the new dam; and that was the way that Silas Bean came to be there with his oxen.