What has not that BASTE
of a man to answer for?"
"I heard," continued Mrs. S - -, "that they have tasted no food but
potatoes for the last nine months, and scarcely enough of them to
keep soul and body together; that they have sold their last cow;
and the poor young lady and her second brother, a lad of only
twelve years old, bring all the wood for the fire from the bush on
a hand sleigh."
"Oh, dear! - oh, dear!" sobbed Jenny; "an' I not there to hilp them!
An' poor Miss Mary, the tinder thing! Oh, 'tis hard, terribly hard
upon the crathurs, an' they not used to the like."
"Can nothing be done for them?" said I.
"That is what we want to know," returned Emilia, "and that was one
of my reasons for coming up to D - -. I wanted to consult you and
Jenny upon the subject. You, who are an officer's wife, and I, who
am both an officer's wife and daughter, ought to devise some plan of
rescuing this poor, unfortunate lady and her family from her present
forlorn situation."
The tears sprang to my eyes, and I thought, in the bitterness of my
heart, upon my own galling poverty, that my pockets did not contain
even a single copper, and that I had scarcely garments enough to
shield me from the inclemency of the weather.
