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Updated: June 8, 2025
"Miss Bethia," said he in a little, "if wee Polly were to die to-night and go to Heaven, do you suppose she would always stay a little child as she is now?" Miss Bethia set down her flat-irons and looked at him in surprise. "What on earth put that into your head?" said she, hastily. "Look at her," said David. "It doesn't seem as though she could be any sweeter even in Heaven, does it?"
Jem came in before he was through. "Well! well! I feel just as if I had been to meeting," said Miss Bethia. "Well done, Davie!" said Jem. "Isn't our Davie a smart boy, Aunt Bethia? I wish Frank could have heard that." "Yes, so I told papa," said David, gravely. "It is a great responsibility to have such privileges as you have, boys " began Miss Bethia.
"But, mamma, you have always spoken as if it did not matter whether we had money or not much money, I mean. And now see how pleased everybody is because Miss Bethia gave her's to you. I don't think anything ever happened before that pleased every one of us so well." "I cannot say that for myself," said his mother. "And there is not much money of it," said Frank.
"I should like it well with mamma and the children." "Of course, that is understood," said Miss Bethia. "And you could take these others with you, couldn't you? And what their father would pay for them would help your house-keeping." "Miss Bethia spoke as coolly as if she had been speaking about the stirring up of a Johnny cake," Jem said. Violet looked eagerly from her to her mother.
Several instances of his kindness to the children and to his own little sisters were repeated, and Mrs Inglis spoke warmly in his praise. "Only, mamma," said Violet, with some hesitation, "all these things are agreeable to himself. He does such things because he likes to do them." "And ain't that to be put to his credit," said Miss Bethia.
"Like Mr Great Heart in the Pilgrim's Progress," said Ned. "Yes. Sometimes it's lions, and sometimes it's giants, but it's fighting all the way through, and God gives the victory. Yes," continued Miss Bethia, after a pause, "it's fighting all the way through, and it don't so much matter how it looks to other folks. Horseshoes or sermons, it don't matter, so that it is done to the Lord.
Sometimes it was guided past week-day subjects by the mother, and sometimes it was gently checked, but, for the most part, this was not needed. The feeling that it was the last night was on them, and they were very quiet and a little sad. Miss Bethia was sad, too, and said little.
But the house and garden in Gourlay, and all else that had been Miss Bethia's, she had bequeathed unconditionally to Mrs Inglis. It was not a large property, but it was a good deal more than Miss Bethia could have been supposed to possess, considering her way of life. It was not quite independence to Mrs Inglis and her children, but it would be a great help toward it.
"Yes," she went on in a little, "it is a great privilege you have, and that was a solemn occasion, a very solemn occasion but you did not tell me the text." David told her the text and a good part of the sermon, too. He told it so well, and grew so interested and animated as he went on, that in a little Miss Bethia set down the flat-iron, and seated herself to listen.
But, Mrs Inglis," said Miss Bethia, impressively, "I wonder you haven't thought of keeping them for David. It won't be a great while before he'll want just such a library. They won't eat anything." "It will be a long time, I am afraid," said David's mother.
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