“This is a bonny day, Mrs Stirling.”
“Oh, ay,” replied Nancy, drearily; “it’s a bonny day.”
“And a fine harvest we are getting,” said the old man, again,—“if we were only thankful to God for His undeserved goodness.”
“Oh, ay; considering all things, the harvest’s not so bad in some places, and in others it’s just middling. It’s not got in yet. We must wait awhile before we set ourselves up upon it.”
“It would ill become us to set ourselves up on that, or any other good gift of the Lord,” said the old man, gravely; “but you and I, Nancy, have seen many a different harvest from this in our day. We are ready enough to murmur if the blessing be withheld, and to take it as our right when it is sent. There’s many a poor body in the countryside who may thank God for the prospect of an easy winter. He has blessed us in our basket and in our store.”
“Oh, well, I dare say I’m as thankful as my neighbours, though I say less about it,” said Nancy, tartly. “I dare say there’s many a poor body will need all they have, and more, before the winter’s over.”
“You see you needn’t mind what Mrs Stirling says,” said Ellen, who with the children had listened to the conversation thus far. “She’s always boding ill. It’s her nature. She has had many things to make the world look dreary to her,—poor woman! Yonder is James Muir, one of our elders,—a good man, if ever there was one. He knew your father, and your grandfather too.”
Yes, he had known their father well; and the next time he turned down the path he stopped to speak to them. Not in many words, but kindly and gravely, as his large, kind heart prompted; and Lilias felt that he was one that might be relied on in time of need.
“There’s your aunt again, with Mrs Graham and the manse bairns,” said Ellen, as they approached. They rose, and went to meet them at the kirk door; and while their aunt and Mrs Graham waited to speak a few words to James Muir, they exchanged sly glances with the young people designated by Ellen as “the manse bairns.”
They were the grandchildren of the aged minister. Their father, his only son,—a minister too,—had, within a year, died in the large town where he had been settled, and his widow had come with her children to the manse, which was now their home.