“Wise and strong,” repeated Mr Greenleaf, smiling, but his face grew grave in a minute again. Mr Elliott made a movement to join them, and Graeme thought of her neglected tea-kettle, and hastened away.
“Never mind,” she whispered, “it will all end well. Things always do when people do right.”
Mr Greenleaf might have some doubt as to the truth of this comforting declaration in all cases, but he could have none as to the interest and good wishes of his little friend, so he only smiled in reply. Not that he had really many serious doubts as to its ending well. He had more than once that very afternoon grieved Celestia by saying that she did not care for him; but, if he had ever had any serious trouble on the subject, they vanished when the first touch of anger and disappointment had worn away, giving him time to acknowledge and rejoice over the “strength and wisdom” so unhesitatingly ascribed by Graeme to her friend. So that it was not at all in a desponding spirit that he turned to reply, when the minister addressed him.
They had scarcely settled down to one of their long, quiet talks, when they were summoned to tea by Graeme, and before tea was over, Janet and the bairns came home. The boys had found their way up the hill when school was over, and they all came home together in Mr Snow’s sleigh. To escape from the noise and confusion which they brought with them, Mr Greenleaf and the minister went into the study again.
During the silence that succeeded their entrance, there came into Mr Greenleaf’s mind a thought that had been often there before. It was a source of wonder to him that a man of Mr Elliott’s intellectual power and culture should content himself in so quiet a place as Merleville, and to-night he ventured to give expression to his thoughts. Mr Elliott smiled.
“I don’t see that my being content to settle down here for life, is any more wonderful than that you should have done so. Indeed, I should say, far less wonderful. You are young and have the world before you.”
“But my case is quite different. I settle here to get a living, and I mean to get a good one too, and besides,” added he, laughing, “Merleville is as good a place as any other to go to Congress from; there is no American but may have that before him you know.”
“As for the living, I can get here such as will content me. For the rest, the souls in this quiet place are as precious as elsewhere. I am thankful for my field of labour.”
Mr Greenleaf had heard such words before, and he had taken them “for what they were worth,” as a correct thing for a minister to say. But the quiet earnestness and simplicity of Mr Elliott’s manner struck him as being not just a matter of course.
“He is in earnest about it, and does not need to use many words to prove it. There must be something in it.” He did not answer him, however.