“I always mind my mistress, Bridget,” said Mammy, “though it’s often I’m forced to pray for patience wi’ her.”
“And indade I don’t ask for patience wid her at all, anny how,” stormed Bridget. “To think of sending the swate child, that never has anny but a kind an’ a pleasant word for iverybody, away to the cold room, just because the brat she doats on chooses to yowl in the fashion he did the morn. I don’t know, indade, what’s the matther with the woman! I think it’s a quare thing, and an on nattheral thing, anny how!”
“She’s much to be blamed, no doubt, Bridget, and yet there’s excuses to be made for my mistress,” said Mammy, mildly. “She’s young yet in years, no but twenty-two; and she’s nothing but a child in her ways and her knowledge. She never knew the blessing of a mither’s care, puir thing; and up to the very day she was married, her life was passed at one o’ them fashionable boarding-schules, where they teach them to play on instruments, and to sing, and to dance, and to paint, and to talk some unchristian tongue that’s never going to do them no good for this life nor the next. But they never give them so much as a hint that they’ve got a soul to be saved, and they take no pains to fit them to be wives and mothers. My mistress was but fifteen years old when she ran away with Master Harry. Poor dear Master Harry! It was the only fulish thing I ever knew him to do, was running away wi’ that chit of a schule-girl. He met her, I think, at a ball that was given at this schule, and Master Harry was over head and ears in love in a minute; and after two or three meetings and a few notes passing, they determined on this runnin’ away folly. I think it was them novels she was always readin’ put it in her head. It wouldn’t do, you know, to be like other folks, but they must have a little kind of a romance about it. Puir, fulish, young things!”
“You see, I was living with old Mr. Elwyn then,” continued Mammy; “indeed, I’ve been in the family ever since I came over from Scotland, quite a lassie, thirty-one years ago come next April. I left them, besure, when I married; but as my gude-man lived but two years, I was soon back in my old home again. Old Mr. Elwyn, Master Harry’s father, had lost his property before this time; but his brother, ‘Uncle Ben,’ as they called him, was very rich. They all lived together—‘Uncle Ben,’ old Mr. Elwyn, Master Harry and Miss Ellen, that’s Mrs. Wharton. Miss Ellen was a few years older than Master Harry, and she was the housekeeper. But Master Harry, bless you! was only twenty years old, when he walked in one morning, and told his father he was married. I never shall forget the time there was then! The old gentleman was complaining, and had had a bad night, though Master Harry did not know that. Well, the sudden shock threw him into an apoplectic fit; and two days after, he had another, and died. Master Harry was almost distracted then: he called himself his father’s murderer; and, indeed, I think he was never what you might call well from that time.”
“But you never saw any one so angry as Mr. Benjamin Elwyn was. He had always intended to make master Harry his heir, but his conduct in this foolish affair enraged him so that he said he would leave him nothing. At first the young folks lived with her father, but he soon died, leaving his daughter a little property settled on herself. But it was not enough to support them, and so Master Harry had to apply to old Mr. Benjamin Elwyn again, and the old man gave him this place, and enough to live on pretty comfortably here. He told Master Harry that perhaps something might be made of his baby wife yet, if he brought her away from the follies of the city, to a country place like this, and tried to improve her mind; and so they have lived here ever since, till last year, when poor master Harry died.”
“And what do ye think is the raison that the misthress thrates little Miss Agnes the way she does?”
“Well, I can hardly tell you, Bridget. In the first place, I have often heard her say that she couldn’t abide girls, and bating other reasons, I think she would have been disappointed on her own account, you know, to have the first child a girl. But, besides this, I have heard that Mr. Benjamin Elwyn quite forgave Mr. Harry, and promised him that if his oldest child was a boy, and he named it after him, he would leave him the bulk of his property. I cannot tell you how bitterly disappointed my young mistress was, when her first born proved to be a girl. She was but sixteen years old then, you know, Bridget, and she acted like a cross, spoiled baby. She cried herself into a fever, and she wouldn’t let the poor, helpless baby, come into her sight. I think she never loved her; and from the time of Master Lewie’s birth, she has seemed to dislike her more and more.”
“But how the father loved her, Mrs. McCrae!”
“Aye, indeed he did; he never could be easy a minute without her. It was a sore day for my poor bairn, when it pleased God to take her father; poor man! But He knows best, Bridget, and He orders all things right.”
Here Mammy was summoned by the bell, and despatched to bring little Agnes down; to accompany her aunt and cousins to their home.