The Parents Assistant | Page 7

be welcome to take share of their
potatoes and buttermilk if they should find their own ever fall short.
The half-guinea which Mr. Hopkins, the agent, required for letting
Mary into the castle, was part of what she had to pay to the
schoolmistress, to whom above a guinea was due. Mary went to her,
and took her goat along with her, and offered it in part of payment of
the debt, but the schoolmistress would not receive the goat. She said
that she could afford to wait for her money till Mary was able to pay it;
that she knew her to be an honest, industrious little girl, and she would
trust her with more than a guinea. Mary thanked her; and she was glad
to take the goat home again, as she was very fond of it.
Being now settled in their house, they went every day regularly to work;
Maud spun nine cuts a day, besides doing all that was to be done in the
house; Edmund got fourpence a day by his work; and Peggy and Annie
earned twopence apiece at the paper-mills near Navan, where they were
employed to sort rags, and to cut them into small pieces.
When they had done work one day, Annie went to the master of the
paper- mill and asked him if she might have two sheets of large white

paper which were lying on the press. She offered a penny for the paper;
but the master would not take anything from her, but gave her the paper
when he found that she wanted it to make a garland for her mother's
grave. Annie and Peggy cut out the garland, and Mary, when it was
finished, went along with them and Edmund to put it up. It was just a
month after their mother's death.
It happened, at the time the orphans were putting up this garland, that
two young ladies, who were returning home after their evening walk,
stopped at the gate of the churchyard to look at the red light which the
setting sun cast upon the window of the church. As the ladies were
standing at the gate, they heard a voice near them crying, "O, mother!
mother! are you gone for ever?" They could not see anyone, so they
walked softly round to the other side of the church, and there they saw
Mary kneeling beside a grave, on which her brothers and sisters were
hanging their white garlands.
The children all stood still when they saw the two ladies passing near
them; but Mary did not know anybody was passing, for her face was
hid in her hands.
Isabella and Caroline (so these ladies were called) would not disturb the
poor children; but they stopped in the village to inquire about them. It
was at the house of the schoolmistress that they stopped, and she gave
them a good account of these orphans. She particularly commended
Mary's honesty, in having immediately paid all her mother's debts to
the utmost farthing, as far as her money would go. She told the ladies
how Mary had been turned out of her house, and how she had offered
her goat, of which she was very fond, to discharge a debt due for her
schooling; and, in short, the schoolmistress, who had known Mary for
several years, spoke so well of her that these ladies resolved that they
would go to the old castle of Rossmore to see her the next day.
When they went there, they found the room in which the children lived
as clean and neat as such a ruined place could be made. Edmund was
out working with a farmer, Mary was spinning, and her little sisters
were measuring out some bogberries, of which they had gathered a
basketful, for sale. Isabella, after telling Mary what an excellent
character she had heard of her, inquired what it was she most wanted;
and Mary said that she had just worked up all her flax, and she was
most in want of more flax for her wheel.

Isabella promised that she would send her a fresh supply of flax, and
Caroline bought the bogberries from the little girls, and gave them
money enough to buy a pound of coarse cotton for knitting, as Mary
said that she could teach them how to knit.
The supply of flax, which Isabella sent the next day, was of great
service to Mary, as it kept her in employment for above a month; and
when she sold the yarn which she had spun with it, she had money
enough to buy some warm flannel for winter wear. Besides spinning
well, she had learned at school to do plain work tolerably neatly, and
Isabella and Caroline employed her to work for them; by