“My dear Reginald, talk of something else! You will soon, I hope, be well: our children are all alive; and the calamity, that has not succeeded to separate us, or to diminish our circle of love even by a single member, we will learn to bear. Let us fix our attention on the better prospects that open before us!”
“Stay, Marguerite! I have other questions to ask. Before you require me to bear the calamities that have overtaken us, let me understand what these calamities are. While we waited for intelligence from Switzerland, we expended the whole sum that we brought with us, and I was obliged to hire myself to the episcopal gardener for bread; was it not so?”
“Indeed, Reginald, you are to blame! Pray question me no further!”
“This was our condition some time ago; and now, for a month past, I have been incapable of labour. Marguerite, what have you done?”
“Indeed, my love, I have been too anxious for you, to think much of any thing else. We had still some things, you know, that we could contrive to do without; and those I have sold. Charles too, our excellent-hearted son, has lately hired himself to the gardener, and has every night brought us home a little, though it was but little.”
“Dear boy! What children, what a wife, have I brought to destruction! Our rent too, surely you have not been able to pay that?”
“Not entirely. In part I have been obliged to pay it.”
“Ah! I well remember how flinty-hearted a wretch has got the power over us in that respect!”
“He has not turned us out of doors. He threatened hard several times. At last I saw it was necessary to make an effort, and the day before yesterday I paid him half his demand. If I could have avoided that, we might have had a supply of food a little longer. I intreated earnestly for a little further indulgence, but it was in vain. It went against the pride and independence of my soul to sue to this man; but it was for you and for my children!”