And so husband and wife talked on, while Alick, standing by, remained resolutely silent.
He would tell nothing about it; he would say nothing concerning the stranger they had met at North Kemms; he would not utterly destroy Heather’s faith, and show her that Bessie had been a deceiver from the beginning. His heart was yearning after the girl, but he would not speak a word that could give a clue as to whom she had eloped with.
She had prayed him not to tell Heather, and he would be faithful to his trust. From him Heather never should know how false this girl had been—this girl with the lovely face, and the sweet, winning manners, which had gained her so many friends.
“The matter should be kept quiet;” each attributing different meanings to that expression, agreed as to the expediency of this course. Arthur said he would go to town with Alick, and take Bessie’s letter on to her father.
“Then, Mr. Ormson can do whatever he thinks best,” said the Squire; and Heather at once went to see that breakfast was got ready for the brothers before their departure.
“I wonder who the devil she can have picked up,” remarked Squire Dudley, when his wife left the room; “you never saw anybody hanging about the place, did you, Alick?”
Very truthfully, Alick answered that he had not; but still in his own soul he felt satisfied Bessie had gone off with the stranger, who sat in the same pew with them, and restored Miss Ormson’s prayer-book on that Sunday when he and his cousin walked across the fields to North Kemms church, talking as they went.
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. STEWART’S PROPOSAL.
The woman who would rule her household well, had need to be endowed by Heaven with almost every virtue. She should be quick to perceive and slow to act; not given to rash judgments, nor easily moved to anger. She should be patient and long-suffering. She should remember that she is an absolute autocrat in her small domain, and be merciful accordingly. Her servants are but after all as children, who have no claim to a parent’s care and affection. She can take the bread out of their mouths, and, if they have been happy with her, drive them forth from Eden into the cold bleak world which is all before them; she can make or mar their futures; she can be lenient, or she can be harsh. She can be cruel—like the servant who, going out loosed from his lord’s presence, seized upon his fellow-servant, crying, “Pay me that thou owest;” or she can have compassion on their infirmities, remembering that the God of the whole earth has had compassion on her.
She can be hard and exacting, demanding full measure and strict change; she can hold the scales steadily, and if there be a feather’s weight too little, cast them out; or she may be merciful as her Father in Heaven is merciful, and be very patient towards those who try her patience, and her temper, and her Christianity daily. She can be the model, managing, worldly mistress, or she may be the mistress which the Lord shall approve when He cometh to His kingdom. She can resolve the whole question into one of work and wage, or she can go further, and strive so to rule herself, and those she has under her, that when the long account comes to be made up—that account between rich and poor, which will never be closed till eternity—the Great Judge shall say she has done her feeble best, that although only one talent was given unto her, it was not buried in the ground, but put out to usury, returning ample interest.