“I am going to be house-keeper for the next two months. Sarah and Charlotte are to have no lessons for that time, and Betsey can take care of them in the country quite as well as I—better, indeed. Mamma needs me at home. Don’t you think so, Davie? I can find enough to do at home; can’t I?”
“But, as you say, it wouldn’t pay so well.”
“In one way, perhaps, it wouldn’t, but in another way it would. But mamma doesn’t say anything,” added Violet, disconsolately.
“We must sleep upon it, mamma thinks,” said Jem.
“We need not be in haste to decide upon it for a day or two,” said Mrs Inglis.
“I am afraid we must, mamma. The sooner the better, Mr Oswald says; and that is why I came to-day.”
“I wish you would come and keep house for me. I am getting tired of it,” said Miss Bethia.
“I should like it well—with mamma and the children.”
“Of course, that is understood,” said Miss Bethia. “And you could take these others with you, couldn’t you? And what their father would pay for them would help your house-keeping.”
“Miss Bethia spoke as coolly as if she had been speaking about the stirring up of a Johnny cake,” Jem said. Violet looked eagerly from her to her mother. There was a little stir and murmur of excitement went round the table, but all awaited for their mother to speak. But she said nothing, and Miss Bethia went on, not at all as if she were saying anything to surprise anybody, but just as she would have told any piece of news.