'I forbid this for once and all. I am servant on wage here just as you are; I am that, and I shall never be anything else.'
'Oh, there you think different from most folks. You don't think according to your interests; and mistress, let me tell you, you don't talk as does the master.'
He went away mumbling something about it being no concern of his, and if some people did not know how to eat their bread and butter when they had it in their hands it was no odds to him.
Mehalah was hurt and incensed. She went to her mother.
'Mother,' she said, 'when will you be able to move? I shall look out for a situation elsewhere.'
'What, my dear child! Move from here, where I am so comfortable! You can not. Elijah won't hear of it. He told me so. He told me you was to remain here, and I should spend the rest of my days here in quiet. It is a very pleasant place, and more in the world than was the Ray. I am better off here than I was there. Now we get everything for nothing, we don't lay out a penny, and you get wage beside.'
'Mother, Abraham has been speaking to me. He has hinted, what I do not like, that I ought to marry Elijah——'
'So you ought,' said the widow. 'Elijah, I am sure, is willing. It is what he has been wishing and hoping for all along, but you have been so stubborn and set against him. After all he has done for us you might yield a bit.'
'I will never marry him.'
'Don't say that. You will do anything to secure a comfortable home for me. It may not be long that I may have to trouble you,—I know you look on me as a trouble, I know that but for me you would feel free, and go away into the world. You think me a burden on you, because I can do nothing: you are young and lusty. But I bore with you, Mehalah, when you was young and feeble, and I laid by for you money that would have been very acceptable to me, and bought me many little comforts that I forbore, to save for you——' The old woman with low cunning had discovered the thread to touch, to move her daughter.