“Ah, Rachel!” he replied, wiping away his tears with the corner of her little apron, “I am indeed ashamed of my weakness; but see, some evil-disposed person has been here in the night, and destroyed all my nice flowers.”
Now, when Rachel beheld the devastation before her, and that even her own little garden in the corner had not escaped from the general wreck, she mingled her tears with Josiah’s.
Josiah comforted his cousin, and at length succeeded in mastering his own feelings.
“I know to repine is useless,” he said; “time and industry will repair my loss; and, though I feel it now severely, it may in the end be for the best: for I own I was too proud and too fond of my garden; and often dedicated hours to that, which I might have employed more profitably in study.”
As he ceased speaking, Dan Simpson passed; and, putting his head over the pales, said in a careless manner—
“A fine morning for your work, Master Shirley! You are determined the sun shall never call you lay-a-bed.”
“My work, Daniel, is at an end,” replied Josiah: “Step into the garden, and see what somebody has done in the night for me.”
With well-affected astonishment, Simpson surveyed the work of his own hands; then exclaimed, with an air of commiseration—
“Who can have made it their business to come here, only to commit so wicked a piece of mischief. I should not at all wonder if it was one of Pat Lary’s mad frolics; I hear he was intoxicated at the fair last night, and broke several windows in his way home.”
“That may be,” returned Josiah; “but, as I never offended Patrick Lary in my life, it would be very cruel to suspect him without a cause.”