“Oh! well. People can’t have everything,” said David.
“You’ve got to be very contented, all at once,” said Jem, laughing. “You have said as much about it as ever I have, and more, too. Don’t you remember when the Hunters went away to M—, to school, and you and Violet couldn’t go? You wanted to go, didn’t you?”
“Nonsense, Jem. I never thought of such a thing seriously. Why, it would have taken more than the whole of papa’s salary to send us both!”
“But that is just what I said. Why should not papa be able to send you, as well as Ned Hunter’s father to send him?”
“It comes to the same thing,” said David, loftily. “I know more Latin and Greek, too, than Ned Hunter, though he has been at M—; and as for Violet—people can’t have everything.”
“And you have grown humble as well as contented, it seems,” said Jem; “just as if you didn’t care! You’ll care when mamma has to send Debby away, and keep Violet at home from school, because she can’t get papa a new great coat, and pay Debby’s wages, too. You may say what you like, but I wish I were rich; and I mean to be, one of these days.”
“But it is all nonsense about Debby, Jem. However, mamma would not wish us to discuss it now, and we had better go to sleep.”
But, though there was nothing more said, none of them went to sleep very soon, and they all had a great many serious thoughts as they lay in silence in the dark. The brothers had often had serious thoughts before; but to Francis they came almost for the first time—or rather, for the first time he found it difficult to put them away. He had been brought up very differently from David and Jem. He was the son of a rich man, and the claims of business had left their father little time to devote to the instruction of his children. The claims of society had left as little to his mother—she was dead now—and, except at church on Sundays, he had rarely heard a word to remind him that there was anything in the world of more importance than the getting of wealth and the pursuit of pleasure, till he came to visit the Inglises.
He had been ill before that, and threatened with serious trouble in his eyes, and the doctor had said that he must have change of air, and that he must not be allowed to look at a book for a long time. Mr Inglis had been at his father’s house about that time, and had asked him to let the boy go home with him, to make the acquaintance of his young people, and he had been very glad to let him go. Mr Inglis was not Frank’s uncle, though he called him so; he was only his father’s cousin, and there had never been any intimacy between the families, so Francis had been a stranger to them all before he came to Gourlay. But he soon made friends with them all. The simple, natural way of life in the minister’s house suited him well, and his visit had been lengthened out to four months, instead of four weeks, as was at first intended; and now, as he lay thinking, he was saying to himself that he was very sorry to go.
This last night he seemed to see more clearly than ever he had seen before what made the difference between their manner of life here in his uncle’s house, and the life they lived at home. It was a difference altogether in favour of their life here, though here they were poor, and at home they were rich. The difference went deeper than outward circumstances, and must reach beyond them—beyond all the chances and changes time might bring.