“Weel, mother,” said she.
“Weel, Janet, is this you, and the bairns? I doubt you hadna weel leavin’ hame the day,” said her mother.
“I had to come, and this day’s as good as another. It’s a bonny day, mother.”
“Ay, its a bonny day, and a seasonable, thank God. Come in by, bairns, I sent Sandy over to Fernie a while syne. It’s near time he were hame again. I’ll give you a piece, and you’ll go down the glen to meet him,” and, well pleased, away they went.
“I dare say you’ll be none the waur of your tea, Janet, woman,” said her mother, and she put aside her wheel, and entered with great zeal into her preparations. Janet strove to have patience with her burden a little longer, and sat still listening to her mother’s talk, asking and answering questions on indifferent subjects. There was no pause. Janet had seldom seen her mother so cheerful, and in a little she found herself wondering whether she had not been exaggerating to herself her mother’s need of her.
“The thought ought to give me pleasure,” she reasoned, but it did not, and she accused herself of perversity, in not being able to rejoice, that her mother could easily spare her to the duties she believed claimed her. In the earnestness of her thoughts, she grew silent at last, or answered her mother at random. Had she been less occupied, she might have perceived that her mother was not so cheerful as she seemed for many a look of wistful earnestness was fastened on her daughter’s face, and now and then a sigh escaped her.
They were very much alike in appearances, the mother and daughter. The mother had been “bonnier in her youth, than ever Janet had,” she used to say herself, and looking at her still ruddy cheeks, and clear grey eyes, it was not difficult to believe it. She was fresh-looking yet, at sixty, and though the hair drawn back under her cap was silvery white, her teeth for strength and beauty, might have been the envy of many a woman of half her years. She was smaller than Janet, and her whole appearance indicated the possession of more activity and less strength of body and mind than her daughter had, but the resemblance between them was still striking. She had seen many trials, as who that has lived for sixty years, has not? but she had borne them better than most, and was cheerful and hopeful still. When they were fairly seated, with the little table between them, she startled Janet, by coming to the point at once.
“And so they say the minister is for awa’ to America after all. Is that true?”
“Oh, ay! it is true, as ill news oftenest is,” said Janet, gravely. “He spoke to me about it before he went away. It’s all settled, or will be before he comes hame the morn.”
“Ay, as you say, it’s ill news to them that he’s leaving. But I hope it may be for the good o’ his young family. There’s many a one going that road now.”