In the letter she was told to spend a pound or two to make herself tidy, and in a postscript her sister providently advised her, if she bought a shawl or bonnet, to get a black one, as it would be "most useful after."
"Poor mother! If she had seen that bit of writing put in at the finish, she wouldn't have liked it. She hasn't made much account of you and me for a long while, but we couldn't have written that. Ann was always good at contriving for other folks."
"I wouldn't get a black bonnet, if I were you," had been Adam's remark, when the postscript was read.
"Trust me for that. Why, mother knows I'm not in mourning for anybody, and if she saw me in a new black bonnet, she would say directly I'd got it ready, reckoning on her dying soon. I'll buy a neat dark bonnet, and go in it, and the shawl mother gave me years ago. I've always kept one decent gown, in case I should be sent for, ever. She'll know the clothes, though I doubt if she would know me, I'm so altered."
Mrs. Livesey looked at her face in the little glass that hung on the wall, and truly the image it reflected was very different from that of Maggie Allison in her girlish days.
"I'm only four-and-thirty now," she thought, "and quite a young woman. But that face might be fifty years old. Eh, dear! Girls don't know what's before them when they are so ready to get married."
Though Mrs. Livesey managed to do a good deal of thinking and talking, she was not idle, but went rapidly on with her preparations. "I should never get through," she would say, "if I hadn't learned both to talk and work when I was young."
Maggie junior had to stay from school whilst mother made her purchases, of which baby had the largest share. By the time she had returned from the shop, Adam was there also, with Sarah Evans, whose appearance gladdened Mrs. Livesey's heart. The young woman expressed her willingness to take immediate charge, and to stay for a couple of days or weeks, as might be needed. She was not alarmed at the sight of the five children, for she was one of a large family, and she received with good-humoured attention all the instructions that Mrs. Livesey could crowd into the time at her disposal.
Adam went with his wife to the station, and saw her off. As they went along, she said, "I've just spent two pounds out of the five, and two I'm taking with me, though going and coming won't cost me that much, only I shouldn't like mother to think that wanted her to give me more. You must keep this other pound, Adam. Maybe that young woman won't be able to make your wages spin out till the week end as I do, and this journey will lose you full half a day."
Adam's astonishment at being entrusted with the custody of a whole sovereign, with discretionary powers as to the spending thereof, struck him with temporary dumbness. He was so used to handing over every sixpence into his wife's hands, and feeling humbly grateful when she, now and then, handed him back two or three coppers, which were certain to be spent on the children, that her present confidence touched him to the very heart.