But at the idea of trousers Effie’s countenance flamed, and she rejected the thought. It was quite possible to endure being unhappy, even in her small experience she was well aware of that—but unwomanly! Oh, what would mamma say? That utterance of habit, the words that rose to her lips without thinking, even now when mamma was about to have a successor—a new mother! brought back the tears in torrents. She flung herself upon Eric’s shoulder, and he, poor fellow, gave her with quivering lips a little furtive kiss, the only consolation he could think of, though they were not at all used to caressing each other. Poor children! and yet Mr. Ogilvie had done nothing cruel, and Mrs. Ogilvie was the best-intentioned woman in the world.
It was lucky that they were found at this critical moment by an individual who is of great importance in this little record of events, as he was in the parish and the neighbourhood generally,—that is Uncle John. He was the minister of Gilston; he was their mother’s brother; and he was one of the men selected by Providence for the consolation of their fellow-creatures.
Perhaps he was not always very wise. He was too much under the sway of his heart to be infallible in the way of advice, although that heart was so tender and full of sympathy that it often penetrated secrets which were undiscoverable to common men. But in his powers of comfort-giving he was perfect. The very sight of him soothed the angry and softened the obdurate, and he dried the tears of the young by some inspiration given to him alone.
“What is the matter?” he said in his large soft voice, which was deep bass and very masculine, yet had something in it too of the wood-pigeon’s brooding tones. They were seated at the foot of a tree in the little wood that protected Gilston House from the east, on the roots of the big ash which were like gray curves of rock among the green moss and the fallen leaves. He came between them, sitting down too, raising Effie with his arm.
“But I think I can guess. You are just raging at Providence and your father, you two ungrateful bairns.”
“Ungrateful!” cried Effie. She was the most speechless of the two, the most prostrate, the most impassioned, and therefore was most ready to reply.
“Oh, what have we to be grateful for?—our own mamma gone away and we’ll never see her more; and another woman—another—a Mistress Ogilvie——” In her rage and despair she pronounced every syllable, with what bitterness and burning scorn and fury! Uncle John drew her little hands down from her face and held them in his own, which were not small, but very firm, though they were soft.
“Your own mother was a very good woman, Effie,” said Uncle John.
The girl paused and looked at him with those fiery eyes which were not softened, but made more angry, by her tears, not seeing how this bore upon the present crisis of affairs.
“Have you any reason to suppose that being herself, as we know she is, with the Lord whom she loved”—and here Uncle John took off his hat as if he were saluting the dearest and most revered of friends—“that she would like you and the rest to be miserable all your lives because she was away?”