"It is perhaps not common, but I know a man who would, I think, suit you in all respects."
"Not if he have children, ma'am," said Mr. Dickinson, with a very determined air.
"You have seen his children, and I think must acknowledge them to be well behaved, for it is of Mr. Graham, my brother's gardener, that I speak."
"I never saw his children in a garden, ma'am," said Mr. Dickinson.
"Suppose I give you an opportunity of doing so," said I, "by bringing his eldest daughter over with me to-morrow. She is, I assure you, a great favorite both with Harriet and with me."
Before Mr. Dickinson could reply to me, Mrs. Temple asked if my brother was going to give up his gardener, that I was seeking other employment for him. I replied that my brother would part with him very unwillingly, but that Mr. Graham had met with great losses, and unless he could obtain a more profitable situation, would have to move away to some distant part of the country where living was cheaper, and where his large family might therefore be more easily supported. I saw that Mr. Dickinson was listening to me, though he said nothing; so, still speaking to Mrs. Temple, I explained the cause of Mr. Graham's difficulties, and then added, "It is for the aged mother of Mr. Graham that I feel this change most. Your brother and I were children when she came to this country with her husband, who soon died, leaving her with this son to support, and nothing but her own labor with which to do it. Your father and some other friends offered her the means of going back to her own family in Scotland. She thanked them, but said, there was no home so dear to her as that where she had lived with her husband, and that she could not leave him, even in his grave, alone with strangers. And now—"
"I will tell you what I will do, ma'am," said Mr. Dickinson, "I will lend Mr. Graham the money to pay for his house."
"Ah! but, Mr. Dickinson, how is he to make the money to pay you again?"
"I will give it to him, ma'am, I will give it to him."
"That will not do," said I, "for Mr. Graham is a proud man, and as determined in his way as Mr. Dickinson is in his. He will not receive alms while he can earn a living."