Janet's Love and Service

by Margaret M. Robertson

“Think long!” echoed Graeme. “Not if I’m left at peace with my book—I only hope no one will come.”

“My dear!” remonstrated Janet, “that’s no’ hospitable. I daresay if anybody comes, you’ll enjoy their company for a change. You maun try and make friends with folk, like Menie here.”

Graeme laughed. “It’s easy for Menie, she’s a child. But I have to behave myself like a grown woman, at least, with most folk. I would far rather have the afternoon to myself.”

She watched them down the street, and then betook herself to her book, and her accustomed seat at the study window. Life was very pleasant to Graeme, these days. She did not manifest her light-heartedness by outward signs; she was almost always as quiet as sorrow and many cares had made her, since her mother’s death. But it was a quiet always cheerful, always ready to change to grave talk with Janet, or merry play with the little ones. Janet’s returning cheerfulness banished the last shade of anxiety from her mind, and she was too young to go searching into the future for a burden to bear.

She was fast growing into companionship with her father. She knew that he loved and trusted her entirely, and she strove to deserve his confidence. In all matters concerning her brothers and sisters, he consulted her, as he might have consulted her mother, and as well as an elder sister could, she fulfilled a mother’s duty to them. In other matters, her father depended upon her judgment and discretion also. Often he was beguiled into forgetting what a child she still was, while he discussed with her subjects more suited for one of maturer years.

And it was pleasant to be looked upon with respect and consideration, by the new friends they had found here. She was a little more than a child in years, and shy and doubtful of herself withal, but it was very agreeable to be treated like a woman, by the kind people about her. Not that she would have confessed this. Not that she was even conscious of the pleasure it gave her. Indeed, she was wont to declare to Janet, in private, that it was all nonsense, and she wished that people would not speak to her always, as though she were a woman of wisdom and experience. But it was agreeable to her all the same.

She had her wish that afternoon. Nobody came to disturb them, till the failing light admonished her that it was time to think of Janet, and the tea-kettle. Then there came a knock at the door, and Graeme opened it to Mr Greenleaf. If she was not glad to see him, her looks belied her. He did not seem to doubt a welcome from her, or her father either, as he came in.

What the charm was, that beguiled Mr Greenleaf into spending so many hours in the minister’s study, the good people of Merleville found it difficult to say. The squire’s ill-concealed indifference to the opinions of people generally, had told against him always. For once, Mrs Page had been too charitable. He was not in a hopeful state, at least, in her sense of the term, and it might be doubted, whether frequent intercourse with the minister, would be likely to encourage the young man to the attainment of Mrs Page’s standard of excellence. But to the study he often came, and he was never an unwelcome guest.

“If I am come at a wrong time, tell me so,” said he, as he shook hands with Mr Elliott, over a table covered with books and papers.

“You can hardly do that,” said the minister, preparing to put the books and papers away. “I am nearly done for the night. Excuse me, for a minute only.”