Janet's Love and Service Part 8

"What an awful wee sinner! And does your grandma punish you ever? Does she whip you?"

The child's black eyes flashed.

"She daren't. Father wouldn't let her. She gives me stints, and sends me to bed."

"The Turk!" exclaimed Harry. "Run away from her, and come and bide with us."

"Hush, Harry," said Graeme, softly, "grandma is Mr Snow's mother."

There was a pause. In a little Emily spoke for the first time of her own accord.

"There are no children at our house," said she.

"Poor wee lammie, and you are lonely sometimes," said Graeme.

"Yes; when father's gone and mother's sick. Then there's n.o.body but grandma."

"Have you a doll?" asked Menie.

"No: I have a kitten, though."

"Ah! you must come and play with my doll. She is a perfect beauty, and her name is Flora Macdonald."

Menie's doll had become much more valuable in her estimation since she had created such a sensation among the little Merleville girls.

"Will you come? Mr Snow," she said, climbing upon the front seat which Norman shared with the driver, "won't you let your little girl come and see my doll?"

"Well, yes; I guess so. If she's half as pretty as you are, she is well worth seeing."

Menie was down again in a minute.

"Yes, you may come, he says. And bring your kitten, and we'll play all day. Graeme lets us, and doesna send us to bed. Will you like to come?"

"Yes," said the child, quickly, but as gravely as ever.

They stopped at the little brown house at last, with a shout that brought their father and Janet out to see. All sprang lightly down.

Little Emily stayed alone in the sleigh.

"Is this your little girl, Mr Snow?" said Mr Elliott, taking the child's hand in his. Emily looked in his face as gravely and quietly as she had been looking at the children all the afternoon.

"Yes; she's your Marian's age, and looks a little like her, too. Don't you think so Mrs Nasmyth?"

Janet, thus appealed to, looked kindly at the child.

"She might, if she had any flesh on her bones," said she.

"Well, she don't look ragged, that's a fact," said her father.

The cold, which had brought the roses to the cheeks of the little Elliotts, had given Emily a blue, pinched look, which it made her father's heart ache to see.

"The bairn's cold. Let her come in and warm herself," said Janet, promptly. There was a chorus of entreaties from the children.

"Well, I don't know as I ought to wait. My horses don't like to stand much," said Mr Snow.

"Never mind waiting. If it's too far for us to take her home, you can come down for her in the evening."

Emily looked at her father wistfully.

"Would you like to stay, dear?" asked he.

"Yes, sir." And she was lifted out of the sleigh by Janet, and carried into the house, and kissed before she was set down.

"I'll be along down after dark, sometime," said Mr Snow, as he drove away.

Little Emily had never heard so much noise, at least so much pleasant noise, before. Mr Elliott sat down beside the bright wood fire in the kitchen, with Marian on one knee and the little stranger on the other, and listened to the exclamations of one and all about the sleigh-ride.

"And hae you nothing to say, my bonnie wee la.s.sie?" said he pus.h.i.+ng back the soft, brown hair from the little grave face. "What is your name, little one?"

"Emily Snow Arnold," answered she, promptly.

"Emily Arnold Snow," said Menie, laughing.

"No; Emily Snow Arnold. Grandma says I am not father's own little girl.

My father is dead."

She looked grave, and so did the rest.

"But it is just the same. He loves you."

"Oh, yes!" There was a bright look in the eyes for once.

"And you love him all the same?"

"Oh, yes."

So it was. Sampson Snow, with love enough in his heart for half a dozen children, had none of his own, and it was all lavished on this child of his wife, and she loved him dearly. But they did not have "good times"

up at their house the little girl confided to Graeme.

"Mother is sick most of the time, and grandma is cross always; and, if it wasn't for father, I don't know what we _should_ do."

Indeed, they did not have good times. Old Mrs Snow had always been strong and healthy, altogether unconscious of "nerves," and she could have no sympathy and very little pity for his son's sickly wife. She had never liked her, even when she was a girl, and her girlhood was past, and she had been a sorrowful widow before her son brought her home as his wife. So old Mrs Snow kept her place at the head of the household, and was hard on everybody, but more especially on her son's wife and her little girl. If there had been children, she might have been different; but she almost resented her son's warm affection for his little step-daughter. At any rate she was determined that little Emily should be brought up as children used to be brought up when _she_ was young, and not spoiled by over-indulgence as her mother had been; and the process was not a pleasant one to any of them, and "good times" were few and far between at their house.

Her acquaintance with the minister's children was the beginning of a new life to Emily. Her father opened his eyes with astonishment when he came into Janet's bright kitchen that night and heard his little girl laughing and clapping her hands as merrily as any of them. If anything had been needed to deepen his interest in them all, their kindness to the child would have done it; and from that day the minister, and his children, and Mrs Nasmyth, too, had a firm and true friend in Mr Snow.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

From the time of their arrival, the minister and his family excited great curiosity and interest among the good people of Merleville. The minister himself, as Mr Snow told Mrs Nasmyth, was "popular." Not, however, that any one among them all thought him faultless, unless Mr Snow himself did. Every old lady in the town saw something in him, which she not secretly deplored. Indeed, they were more unanimous, with regard to the minister's faults, than old ladies generally are on important subjects. The matter was dispa.s.sionately discussed at several successive sewing-circles, and when Mrs Page, summing up the evidence, solemnly declared, "that though the minister was a good man, and a good preacher, he lacked considerable in some things which go to make a man a good pastor," there was scarcely a dissenting voice.