Mr Snow cleared his throat, and nodded his head a great many times. It was not easy for him to speak at the moment.
“If it were only May, now, instead of September! You always did find our winters hard; and it is pretty tough being hived up so many months of the year. I do dread the winter for you.”
“Maybe it winna be so hard on me. We must make the best of it anyway. I am thankful for ease from pain. That is much.”
“Yes,” said Mr Snow, with the shudder that always came with the remembrance of his wife’s sufferings, “thank God for that. I ain’t a going to fret nor worry about the winter, if I can help it. I am going to live, if I can, from hour to hour, and from day to day, by the grace that is given me; but if I could fix it so that Graeme would see it best to stop here a spell longer, I should find it considerable easier, I expect.”
“But she has said nothing about going away yet,” said Mrs Snow, smiling at his way of putting it. “You must take the grace of her presence, day by day, as you do the rest, at least till she shows signs of departure.”
“We never can tell how things are going to turn,” said Mr Snow, musingly. “There is that good come out of your sickness. They are both here, and, as far as I see, they are content to be here. If we could prevail on Will to see it his duty to look toward this field of labour, now, I don’t doubt but we could fix it so that they should make their home, here always—right here in this house, I mean—only it would be ’most too good a thing to have in this world, I’m afraid.”
“We must wait for the leadings of Providence,” said his wife. “This field, as you call it, is no’ at Will’s taking yet. What would your friend, Mr Perry, think if he heard you? And as for the others, we must not be over-anxious to keep them beyond what their brothers would like. But, as you say, they seem content; and it is a pleasure to have them here, greater than I can put in words; and I know you are as pleased as I am, and that doubles the pleasure to me,” added Mrs Snow, looking gratefully toward her husband. “It might have been so different.”
“Oh! come, now. It ain’t worth while, to put it in that way at this time of day. I don’t know as you’d allow it exactly; but I do think they are about as nigh to me as they are to you. I really do.”
“That’s saying much, but I’ll no’ gainsay it,” said Mrs Snow, smiling. “They are good bairns, and a blessing wherever they may go. But I doubt we canna hope to keep them very long with us.”
“It is amazing to me. I can’t seem to understand it, or reconcile it to—.”