“Oh! yes, it is not that I don’t know. Our expenses are greater than they used to be—double, indeed. But there is enough, I suppose. It is not that—at least it is not that only, or chiefly.”
“What is it then, dear child?” asked her friend.
But Graeme could not answer at the moment. There were many reasons why she should not continue to live her present unsatisfying life, and yet she did not know how to tell her friend. They were all plain enough to her, but some of them she could not put in words for the hearing of Janet, even. She had been saying to herself, all along, that it was natural, and not wrong for her to grow tired of her useless, aimless life, and to long for earnest, bracing work, such as many a woman she could name was toiling bravely at. But with Janet’s kind hand on her head, and her calm, clear eyes looking down upon her face, she was constrained to acknowledge that, but for one thing, this restless discontent might never have found her. To herself she was willing to confess it. Long ago she had looked her sorrow in the face, and said, “With God’s help I can bear it.” She declared to herself that it was well to be roused from sloth, even by a great sorrow, so that she could find work to do. But, that Janet should look upon her with pitying or reproving eyes, she could not bear to think; so she sat at her feet, having no power to open her lips, never thinking that by her silence, and by the unquiet light in her downcast eyes, more was revealed to her faithful old friend than spoken words could have told.
“What is it my dear?” said Mrs Snow. “Is it pride or discontent, or is it something worse?” Graeme laughed a little bitterly. “Can anything be worse than these?”
“Is it that your brother is wearying of you?”
“No, no! I could not do him the wrong to think that. It would grieve him to lose us, I know. Even when he thought it was for my happiness to go away, the thought of parting gave him pain.”
“And you have more sense than to let the airs and nonsense of his bairn-wife vex you?”
Graeme was silent a moment. She did not care to enter upon the subject of Arthur’s wife just at this time.
“I don’t think you quite understand Fanny, Janet,” said she, hesitating.
“Weel, dear, maybe no. The bairns that I have had to deal with have not been of her kind. I have had no experience of the like of her.”