Margaret Maliphant

								

was a very pretty thing. She was a very pretty woman, and she looked
her prettiest that day. She was tall--we were a tall family, I was the
shortest of us all--and her height looked even greater than it was in
the straight folds of the soft gray dress that suited so well with her
fair skin. She had a fresh white cap on; the soft fluted frills came
down in straight lines just below her ears, framing her face; and the
bands of snow-white hair, that looked so pretty beside the fresh skin,
were tucked away smoothly beneath it. Mother's face was a young face
still--as dainty in color as a little child's. Joyce took her beauty
from her.
Mother was standing up in the middle of the room talking to the squire,
who apparently was about to take his leave. Joyce was putting the last
touches to the dinner-table. She looked up at me in an appealing kind
of way as I came in, and I felt sure that there had been some sort of
difference between father and the squire. They often did have little
differences, though they were the best of friends in reality; but I
always secretly took father's side in every argument, and I never liked
to see mother, as it were, making amends for what father had said. Yet
it was what she was doing now. "I'm sure, Squire Broderick," she was
saying, "we take it very kindly of you to interest yourself in our
affairs. Laban is a little tetchy just now, but it's because he ain't
well. He feels just as I do really."
Father made an impatient sound with his lips at this, but mother went
on just the same.
"I'm quite of your mind," she declared, shaking her head. "I've often
said so to Laban myself. We can't go against Providence, and we must
learn to take help where we can get it, though I know ofttimes it's
just the hardest thing we have to do."
What could this speech mean? I was puzzled. I glanced at father. He sat
quite silent, tapping his foot. I glanced at Joyce. There was nothing
in her manner to show that the subject under discussion had anything
whatever to do with her. The squire had turned round as I came into the
room, but mother kept him so to herself that he could do no more than
give me a smile as I walked across and sat down in the window-seat.
"I know it would be the best in the end," mother went on, with a
distressed look on her sweet old face.
It rather annoyed me at the time, simply because I saw that she was
siding with the squire against father; but I have often remembered
that, and many kindred looks since, and have wondered how it was that
I never guessed at the anxiety of that tender spirit that labored so
devotedly to cope with problems that were beyond its grasp.
"However," added mother, with the pretty smile that, after all, I
remember more often than the knitted brow, "he'll come round himself in
time. He always does see things the way you put them after a bit."
She said these words in a whisper, although they were really quite
loud enough for any one to hear. I saw father smile. He was so fond of