“Oh! come now, mother. That ain’t saying much. There ain’t a great many better preachers in our part of the world, whatever they may be where you live. To be sure, if you leave to-night after tea, you can catch the night cars for Boston, and stay there over Sunday, and have your pick of some pretty smart men. But you’d better stay.—Not but what I could have you over to Rixford in time, as well as not, if it is an object to you. But you better stay, hadn’t he, girls? What do you say, Rose?”
“And hear Mr Perry preach? Oh! certainly,” said Rose, gravely.
“Oh! he will stay,” said Graeme, laughing, with a little vexation. “It is my belief he never meant to go, only he likes to be entreated. Now confess, Charlie.”
Chapter Forty Three.
“Eh, bairns! is it no’ a bonny day!” said Mrs Snow, breaking into Scotch, as she was rather apt to do when she was speaking to the sisters, or when a little moved. “I ay mind the first look I got o’ the hills ower yonder, and the kirk, and the gleam of the grave-stones, through the trees. We all came round the water on a Saturday afternoon like this; and Norman and Harry took turns in carrying wee Rosie, and we sat down here and rested ourselves, and looked ower yon bonny water. Eh, bairns! if I could have but had a glimpse of all the years that have been since then, of all the ‘goodness and mercy’ that has passed before us, now my thankless murmurs, and my unbelieving fears would have been rebuked!”
They were on their way up the hill to spend the afternoon at Mr Nasmyth’s, and Mr Millar was with them. Nothing more had been said about his going away, and if he was not quite content to stay, “his looks belied him,” as Miss Lovejoy remarked to herself, as she watched them, all going up the hill together. They were going very slowly, because of Mrs Snow’s lingering weakness. One of the few of the “Scotch prejudices!” that remained with her after all these years, was the prejudice in favour of her own two feet, as a means of locomotion, when the distance was not too great; and rather to the discontent of Mr Snow, she had insisted on walking up to the other house, this afternoon.
“It is but a step, and it will do me no harm, but good, to go with the bairns,” said she, and she got her own way.
It was a “bonny day,” mild, bright, and still. The autumnal beauty of the forests had passed, but the trees were not bare, yet, though October was nearly over; and, now and then, a brown leaf fell noiselessly through the air, and the faint rustle it made as it touched the many which had gone before it, seemed to deepen the quiet of the time. They had stopped to rest a little at the turn of the road, and were gazing over the pond to the hills beyond, as Mrs Snow spoke.