"They would not do it!" warmly replied Jane. "You do not know my boys yet, if you think they would rob their sick sister."
"I know that boys' stomachs are always on the crave for anything that's good," retorted Dobbs. "You might skin a boy if you were forced to it, but you'd never drive his nature out of him; and that's to be always eating!"
So she had even this help—port wine! It seemed almost beyond belief, and Jane lost herself in thought.
"Mamma, you don't hear me!"
"Did you speak, Janey?"
"I say I think Dobbs got that fowl for me. Mrs. Reece is not taking meat, and Dobbs would not buy a fowl for herself. She will give me all the best parts, and pick the bones herself. You'll see. How kind they are to me! What should I have done, mamma, if I had only our plain food? I know I could not eat it now."
"God is over us, my dear child," was Jane's reply. "It is He who has directed this help to us: never doubt it, Jane. Whether we live or die," she added pointedly, "we are in His hands, and He orders all things for the best."
"Can to die be for the best?" asked Janey, sitting up to think over the question.
"Why, yes, my dear girl; certainly it is, if God wills it. How often have I talked to you about the rest after the grave! No more tears, no more partings. Which is best—to be here, or to go to that rest? Oh, Janey! we can put up surely with illness and with crosses here, if we may only attain to that. This world will last only for a little while at best; but that other will abide for ever and for ever."
A summons from Mr. Parry's boy: Miss Halliburton's medicine had arrived. Miss Halliburton made a grievous face over it, when her mamma poured the dose out. "I never can take it! It smells so nasty!"