Widow.—“Well, sir, and you are kind to say to it—but he is.”
Parson.—“He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best lad in the whole school at his catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I assure you, when I see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I fancy that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a listener!”
Widow, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron.—“'Deed, sir, when my poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done. But that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there in dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used to say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my goodman smiled on me, and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown up, and did not want me any more.”
Parson, looking away, and after a pause.—“You never hear any thing of the old folks at Lansmere?”
“'Deed, sir, sin' poor Mark died, they han't noticed me, nor the boy; but,” added the widow, with all a peasant's pride, “it isn't that I wants their money; only it's hard to feel strange like to one's own father and mother!”
Parson.—“You must excuse them. Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never quite the same man after that sad event—but you are weeping, my friend, pardon me:—your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in another way.”
Widow.—“I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit of pride in me! and that's the reason they always looked down on me.”
Parson.—“Your parents must be well off, and I shall apply to them in a year or two on behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him when he grew up, as they ought.”
Widow, with flashing eyes.—“I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given him a kind word sin' he was born!”
The Parson smiled gravely and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield's hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride, but he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making in the most irritable of all rancors, viz., that nourished against one's nearest relations. He therefore dropped that subject, and said, “Well, time enough to think [pg 664] of Lenny's future prospects: meanwhile we are forgetting the hay-makers. Come.”