Janets Love and Service | Page 6

she had given her infant to her mother's care, and gone back again to a servant's place in the minister's household. There she had been for ten years the stay and right hand of her beloved friend and mistress, "working the work of two," as they told her, who would have made her discontented in her lot, with no thought from year's end to year's end, but how she might best do her duty in the situation in which God had placed her.
But far-away into the future--it might be years and years hence--she looked to the time when in a house of her own, she might devote herself entirely to the comfort of her mother and her son. In this hope she was content to strive and toil through the best years of her life, living poorly and saving every penny, to all appearance equally indifferent to the good word of those who honoured her for her faithfulness and patient labour, and to the bad word of those who did not scruple to call her most striking characteristics by less honourable names. She had never, during all these years, spoken, even to her mother, of her plans, but their fulfilment was none the less settled in her own mind, and none the less dear to her because of that. Could she give this up? Could she go away from her home, her friends, the land of her birth, and be content to see no respite from her labour till the end? Yes, she could. The love that had all these years been growing for the children she had tended with almost a mother's care, would make the sacrifice possible-- even easy to her. But her mother? How could she find courage to tell her that she must leave her alone in her old age? The thought of parting from her son, her "bonny Sandy," loved with all the deeper fervour that the love was seldom spoken--even this gave her no such pang as did the thought of turning her back upon her mother. He was young, and had his life before him, and in the many changes time might bring, she could at least hope to see him again. But her mother, already verging on the three-score, she could never hope to see more, when once the broad Atlantic rolled between them.
And so, no wonder if in the misery of her indecision, Janet's words grew fewer and sharper as the days wore on. With strange inconsistency she blamed the minister for his determination to go away, but suffered no one else to blame him, or indeed to hint that he could do otherwise than what was wisest and best for all. It was a sore subject, this anticipated departure of the minister, to many a one in Clayton besides her, and much was it discussed by all. But it was a subject on which Janet would not be approached. She gave short answers to those who offered their services in the way of advice. She preserved a scornful silence in the presence of those who seemed to think she could forsake her master and his children in their time of need, nor was she better pleased with those who thought her mother might be left for their sakes. And so she thought, and wished, and planned, and doubted, till she dazed herself with her vain efforts to get light, and could think and plan no more.
"I'll leave it to my mother herself to decide," she said, at last; "though, poor body, what can she say, but that I maun do what I think is my duty, and please myself. The Lord above kens I hae little thought o' pleasin' myself in this matter." And in her perplexity Janet was ready to think her case an exception to the general rule, and that contrary to all experience and observation, duty pointed two ways at once.
CHAPTER THREE.
The time came when the decision could no longer be delayed. The minister was away from home, and before his return it would be made known formally to his people that he was to leave them, and after that the sooner his departure took place it would be the better for all concerned, and so Janet must brace herself for the task.
So out of the dimness of her spotless kitchen she came one day into the pleasant light of May, knowing that before she entered it again, she would have made her mother's heart as sore as her own. All day, and for many days, she had been planning what she should say to her mother, for she felt that it must be farewell.
"If you know not of two ways which to choose, take that which is roughest and least pleasing to yourself, and the chances