Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'You mean, if Joe has been behaving himself?—which is a question I can thankfully answer at present. Joe has not been troubling me again, Miss Ross. I think father frightened him that time. Joe was always a coward; it is an evil conscience that makes him a coward. There is nothing else so frights a man. Joe couldn't treat a woman as he has treated me without feeling his conscience prick him sometimes.'

'No, indeed, Mrs. Baxter. Let us hope that he will repent some day.'

'I tell father his repentance will come too late. We can't sow tares and reap wheat in this world, Miss Ross. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth." I always think of Joe when I read that verse. Oh, there is always comfort to be found in the Scriptures. "A woman forsaken and grieved in spirit"—do you remember those words, Miss Ross? I came upon them quite suddenly one evening as I was sitting in this very porch, and I said out loud to myself, as one does sometimes, "Those words just fit you, Priscilla Baxter; they might be written for you."'

'That makes the Bible such a wonderful book,' returned Audrey thoughtfully. 'Every form of grief finds expression and comfort there; there is food for every mind, every age, every nationality.'

'I never saw anyone to beat father in reading the Bible, Miss Ross. You would be surprised to see how kindly he takes to it. I have known him read the Prodigal Son to Hannah and me on Sunday evening with the tears running down his face, and he not knowing it more than a baby, for all Hannah's sniffs. It is his favourite reading—it is, indeed, Miss Ross, though his voice does get choky sometimes.'

'He is thinking of his poor brother Mat.'

'Begging your pardon, Miss Ross, I would rather not mention Uncle Mat,' returned Mrs. Baxter stiffly. 'Joe has been a thorn in my side, heaven knows! and his wickedness has reduced me, his wedded wife, to skin and bone; but even Joe, with all his villainies, has not made himself a felon, and I can still bear his name without blushing—and so I have told father a score of times when he wants to make out that Joe is the blacker of the two.'

'Oh, I would not hurt him by speaking against his brother! Do you know, Mrs. Baxter, he loves him so dearly still.'

'Yes; but that is father's craze, Miss Ross,' she replied coldly. 'Even a good man has his little weakness, and, being a Churchwoman, and I trust humbly a believer, I would not deny that Providence has given me as good a father as ever breathed this mortal air; but we are all human, Miss Ross, and human nature has its frailties, and father would be a wiser and a happier man if he did not set such store by an ungrateful and good-for-nothing brother, who is a shame to his own flesh and blood, and whom it is a bitterness to me to own as my Uncle Mat.'

'Priscilla!' ejaculated a grieved voice near them; and, looking round, the two women saw Mr. O'Brien standing within a few paces of them. No one had heard his footsteps except Booty, whose instincts were always gentlemanly, and who, in spite of his deep dejection, had given him a friendly greeting.