Between Whiles by Helen Hunt Jackson
page 123 of 198 (62%)
page 123 of 198 (62%)
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anything'll get it for her, it'll be schoolin'."
The "boardin' like a lady," which had so offended the Misses Mclntosh's sense of propriety, was not, after all, so great an extravagance as they had supposed; for it was in his own brother's house her thrifty father had put her, and had stipulated that part of the price of her board was to be paid in produce of one sort and another from the farm, at market rates; "an' so, ye see, the lass 'll be eatin' it there 'stead of here," he said to his wife when he told her of the arrangement, "an' it's a sma' difference it'll make to us i' the end o' the two years." "An' a big difference to her a' her life," replied Isabella, warmly. "Ay, wife," said John, "if it fa's out as ye hope; but it's main uncertain countin' on the book-knowledge. There's some it draws up an' some it draws down; it's a millstone. But the lass is bright; she's as like you as two peas in a pod. If ye'd had the chance she's had--" Rising color in Isabella's face warned John to stop. It is a strange thing to see how often there hovers a flitting shadow of jealousy between a mother and the daughter to whom the father unconsciously manifests a chivalrous tenderness akin to that which in his youth he had given only to the sweetheart he sought for wife. Unacknowledged, perhaps, even unmanifested save in occasional swift and unreasonable petulances, it is still there, making many a heartache, which is none the less bitter that it is inexplicable to itself, and dares not so much as confess its own existence. "It's a better thing for a woman to make her way i' the world on the book-learnin' than to be always at the wheel an' the churn an' the |
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