“Eh, how the water runs out and in!” exclaimed Violet; “and we have a boat all to ourselves. Mr. John, will you tell me what this book is—is it good for reading?” and Violet contemplated, with a slightly puzzled expression, the dense pages of blank verse in which there appeared no story to catch her eye, or interest.
“Very good for reading,” answered the oracular Mr. John; “but now, Lettie, put the books back, and run down to Mrs. McGarvie’s like a good girl, and bring me a new pipe—run, Lettie!”
There was a strange alliance between the child and the man. Lettie, not always very tolerant of messages, put down the books without a murmur, and obeyed.
It was now May, and the day was hot and slumbrous. Miss Jeanie Rodger was at the warehouse, carrying back the work; Miss Aggie making boisterous fun with little Harry at the window; while proud, pensive, faded Miss Rodger sat very unpresentable in another room, repairing worn finery, which never could have been suitable for her, and was suitable for no one now.
The mother, worn out by two or three successive encounters with tax-gatherers, whose visits she bitterly resented at all times, and among whom she classed the collectors of those innocent water and gas accounts, which lay upon the “bunker” in the kitchen, was sleeping away her wrath and fatigue; everything was still in the house, except the crowing of little Harry. And little Harry’s mother and aunts were making a new frock for him in the parlour—a work which, for very joy, made slow progress: they had so many other things to think and talk about.
Looking into this pleasant work-room to see that all was right, before she obeyed the command of Mr. John, Violet went bounding down the stair, and out into the street.
Mrs. McGarvie’s Tiger sat painfully on the very narrow step of the door, where he could be shaded from the sun; sat very upright and prim, poor fellow, compelled by this circumscribed space. Mrs. McGarvie’s pretty Helen, with her beautiful hair and her bare feet, on short time at the mill, lovingly clipped with Maggie McGillivray across the way, but was very languid under the full sunshine, and grew quite ashamed of herself as she watched with awe and admiration the vigorous shears of her companion; while Mrs. McGarvie in the easy dishabille of a loose short gown, shook her clenched hand at her daughter from the threshold, and called her an idle cuttie at the top of her voice.
It was a drowsy day, and some one looking very brown and dusty, came toiling down the sunny, unshaded road,
“Eh, it’s Harry!” cried Violet Muir—and affectionately grasping the pipe in one hand, she ran up the road to secure Harry with the other.
“Who’s to smoke the pipe? Lettie, you must go no more messages like this, for you’re a young lady now,” said Harry, drawing himself up. “Is it for that idle fellow, John Rodger? What a shame, Lettie!”