Janet's Love and Service

by Margaret M. Robertson

“Ill? my dear, if the doctor thought him ill would he send him from home? But he needs a rest, and a change—and, my dear, you do that yourself, and I think it’s just providential. Not but that you could have gone without their help, but this was done in love, and I would fain have you take pleasure in it, as I do.”

And Graeme did take pleasure in it, and said so, heartily, and “though it wasna just the thing for the Sabbath night,” as Janet said, they lingered a little, speaking of the things that were to be done, or to be left undone, in view of the preparations for the journey. They returned to the study with the light just as Mr Elliott was saying,—

“And so, I thought, having the prospect of but few Sabbaths, I would like to spend them all at home.”

Janet’s first impulse was to turn and see whether Graeme had heard her father’s words. She evidently had not, for she came in smiling, and set the lamp on the table. There was nothing reassuring in the gravity of her husband’s face, Mrs Snow thought, but his words were cheerful.

“Well, yes, I vote for Canada. We ain’t going to believe all the boys say about it, but it will be a cool kind of place to go to in summer, and it will be a change, to say nothing of the boys.”

Graeme laughed softly. The boys would not have been the last on her list of good reasons, for preferring Canada as the scene of their summer wanderings. She did not join in the cheerful conversation that followed, however, but sat thinking a little sadly, that the meeting with the boys, in their distant home, would be sorrowful as well as joyful.

If Mrs Snow had heard anything from her husband, with regard to the true state of the minister’s health, she said nothing of it to Graeme, and she went about the preparations for their journey cheerfully though very quietly. Indeed, if her preparations had been on a scale of much greater magnificence, she needed not have troubled herself about them. Ten pairs of hands were immediately placed at her disposal, where half the number would have served. Her affairs were made a personal matter by all her friends. Each vied with the others in efforts to help her and save her trouble; and if the reputation of Merleville, for all future time, had depended on the perfect fit of Graeme’s one black silk, or on the fashion of her grey travelling-dress, there could not, as Mrs Snow rather sharply remarked, “have been more fuss made about it.” And she had a chance to know, for the deacon’s house was the scene of their labours of love. For Mrs Snow declared “she wouldna have the minister and Miss Graeme fashed with nonsense, more than all their proposed jaunt would do them good, and so what couldna be redone there needna be done at all.”

But Mrs Snow’s interest and delight in all the preparations were too real and manifest, to permit any of the willing helpers to be offended at her sharpness. In her heart Mrs Snow was greatly pleased, and owned as much in private, but in public, “saw no good in making a work about it,” and, on behalf of the minister and his daughter, accepted the kindness of the people as their proper right and due. When Mrs Page identified herself with their affairs, and made a journey to Rixford for the purpose of procuring the latest Boston fashion for sleeves, before Graeme’s dress should be made, she preserved the distant civility of manner, with which that lady’s advances were always met; and listened rather coldly to Graeme’s embarrassed thanks, when the same lady presented her with some pretty lawn handkerchiefs; but she was warm enough in her thanks to Becky Pettimore—I beg her pardon, Mrs Eli Stone—for the soft lamb’s wool socks, spun and knitted for the minister by her own hands, and her regrets that her baby’s teeth would not permit her to join the sewing parties, were far more graciously received than were Mrs Page’s profuse offers of assistance.

On the whole, it was manifest that Mrs Snow appreciated the kindness of the people, though she was not quite impartial in her bestowment of thanks; and, on the whole, the people were satisfied with the “deacon’s wife,” and her appreciation of them and their favours. Nothing could be more easily seen, than that the deacon’s wife had greatly changed her mind about many things, since the minister’s Janet used “to speak her mind to the Merleville folk,” before they were so well known to her.

As for Graeme, her share in the business of preparation was by no means arduous. She was mostly at home with the bairns, or sharing the visits of her father to the people whom he wished to see before he went away. It was some time before Will and Rosie could be persuaded that it was right for Graeme to leave them, and that it would be altogether delightful to live all the time at Mr Snow’s, and go to school in the village—to the fine new high-school, which was one of the evidences of the increasing prosperity of Merleville. But they were entirely persuaded of it at last, and promised to become so learned, that Graeme should afterward have nothing to teach them. About the little ones, the elder sister’s heart was quite at rest. It was not the leaving them alone, for they were to be in the keeping of the kind friend, who had cared for them all their lives.