“Quite true, and, therefore, I should take certainly not less than half the burden of providing for Harry’s helpless little ones.”
“No doubt you will do your full share,” she said coldly, “and your wife will be expected to do more than hers in the way of seeing that the children are trained and taught, fed and clothed; things that such a butterfly of fashion as Mrs. Albert does not trouble her head about for her own offspring, and certainly would not for others.”
“Well, my dear, fortunately for us we will not be called upon to give an account for her sins of omission or commission; but I have heard you say, certainly more than once or twice, that you consider it a duty to care for the poor with purse, time, and effort; and surely relationship to your husband should not be looked upon as a bar to such ministrations on the part of his wife. My brother, I am happy to say, is more than willing to do his full share, and I certainly do not want him to do more.”
He was magnanimous enough not to mention her orphan niece whom he was supporting and educating, and she had the grace to feel somewhat ashamed of her display of unwillingness to do a little for his fatherless and motherless nephew and nieces. But she did not condescend to say so much in words.
“Well, how soon are we to expect them?” she asked.
“They are already here,” he replied, “and the errand from which I have just returned was to the vessel that brought them. Albert proposes to keep the whole four for a few days, till they have had time to become somewhat acquainted with us, and parted with the good woman—the wife of a soldier in Canada—who had charge of them on the voyage.”
“And after that?”
“We propose to make a division—each taking two; our wives, of course, having a vote as to which two each of them may prefer to take.”
“And they have been already sent up to your brother’s, I suppose? I wonder how Augusta likes it.”
“Surely she can hardly be without some feeling of compassion for the sorely bereaved little ones,” he returned with emotion.