“Was she? Perhaps; I don’t know.” His charity was older than hers.
“Did you notice, Rose, her sad fatalism: if the child was to die, it would die?”
“Yes; it was a strange illustration of our talk.”
CHAPTER V
We have so far heard little of Mrs. Lyndsay; but, in fact, she was usually more felt than heard in the every-day life of the household. Archibald Lyndsay said, “She had but one defect, and that was not a fault. She was so entirely good that she lacked all human opportunity for the exercise of repentance.”
“There is no credit to be had in this world, my dear, for monotony of virtue,” said Anne Lyndsay. “When you do some of your sweet, nice things, that cost you no end of trouble, people merely say, ‘Oh, yes, Margaret Lyndsay! but she likes to do that kind of thing.’ For my part I prefer that wise mixture of vice and virtue which gives variety of flavor to life, and now and then adds the unexpected.”
This was said at breakfast on Sunday morning, the day after Rose had seen the dying lad, who now lay quiet in the dismal cabin where the mother sat angrily brooding over her loss.
Lyndsay had spoken of some pleasant act of thoughtful kindness on the part of his wife; and as Anne, laughing, made her comment, Margaret had shaken a menacing finger at her kindly critic, saying quietly:
“Oh, I think we are very much alike, Anne”; at which there was a general outbreak of mirth, for these people were much given to laughter.