Janets Love and Service | Page 3

There were no tears on her face now, but it was very white, and her voice was low and changed.
"Miss Graeme, you are to go to your mamma; she's wantin' you. But mind you are to be quiet, and think o' your father."
Taking the child in her arms, she turned her back upon the startled girl. Chilled and stiff from her uneasy posture, Graeme strove to rise, and stumbling, caught at Janet's arm.
"Mamma is better Janet," she asked eagerly. Janet kept her working face out of sight, and, in a little, answered hoarsely,--
"Ay, she'll soon be better, whatever becomes of the rest of us. But, mind, you are to be quiet, Miss Graeme."
Chilled and trembling, Graeme crept up-stairs and through the dim passages to her mother's room. The curtains had been drawn back, and the daylight streamed into the room. But the forgotten candles still glimmered on the table. There were several people in the room, standing sad and silent around the bed. They moved away as she drew near. Then Graeme saw her mother's white face on the pillow, and her father bending over her. Even in the awe and dread that smote on her heart like death, she remembered that she must be quiet, and, coming close to the pillow, she said softly,--
"Mother."
The dying eyes came back from their wandering, and fastened on her darling's face, and the white lips opened with a smile.
"Graeme--my own love--I am going away--and they will have no one but you. And I have so much to say to you."
So much to say! With only strength to ask, "God guide my darling ever!" and the dying eyes closed, and the smile lingered upon the pale lips, and in the silence that came next, one thought fixed itself on the heart of the awe-stricken girl, never to be effaced. Her father and his motherless children had none but her to care for them now.
CHAPTER TWO.
"It's a' ye ken! Gotten ower it, indeed!" and Janet turned her back on her visitor, and went muttering about her gloomy kitchen: "The minister no' being one to speak his sorrow to the newsmongering folk that frequent your house, they say he has gotten ower it, do they? It's a' they ken!"
"Janet, woman," said her visitor, "I canna but think you are unreasonable in your anger. I said nothing derogatory to the minister; far be it from me! But we can a' see that the house needs a head, and the bairns need a mother. The minister's growing gey cheerful like, and the year is mair than out; and--"
"Whisht, woman. Dinna say it. Speak sense if ye maun speak," said Janet, with a gesture of disgust and anger.
"Wherefore should I no' say it?" demanded her visitor. "And as to speaking sense--. But I'll no' trouble you. It seems you have friends in such plenty that you can afford to scorn and scoff at them at your pleasure. Good-day to you," and she rose to go.
But Janet had already repented her hot words.
"Bide still, woman! Friends dinna fall out for a single ill word. And what with ae thing and anither I dinna weel ken what I'm saying or doing whiles. Sit down: it's you that's unreasonable now."
This was Mistress Elspat Smith, the wife of a farmer--"no' that ill aff," as he cautiously expressed it--a far more important person in the parish than Janet, the minister's maid-of-all-work. It was a condescension on her part to come into Janet's kitchen, under any circumstances, she thought; and to be taken up sharply for a friendly word was not to be borne. But they had been friends all their lives; and Janet "kenned hersel' as gude a woman as Elspat Smith, weel aff or no' weel aff;" so with gentle violence she pushed her back into her chair, saying:
"Hoot, woman! What would folk say to see you and me striving at this late day? And I want to consult you."
"But you should speak sense yourself, Janet," said her friend.
"Folk maun speak as it's given them to speak," said Janet; "and we'll say nae mair about it. No' but that the bairns might be the better to have some one to be over them. She wouldna hae her sorrow to seek, I can tell you. No that they're ill bairns--"
"We'll say no more about it, since that is your will," said Mrs Smith, with dignity; and then, relenting, she added,--
"You have a full handfu' with the eight of them, I'm sure."
"Seven only," said Janet, under her breath. "She got one of them safe home with her, thank God. No' that there's one ower many," added she quickly; "and they're no' ill bairns."
"You have your ain troubles among them, I dare say, and are muckle to be pitied--"
"Me to be pitied!" said Janet scornfully, "there's