"You don't suppose I would venture to say anything not complimentary to your boy to you, do you? Or that I would wish to say it to any one?

But he _does_ take life so seriously. He is so dreadfully in earnest.

One would think that Davie was years and years older than I am."

"Yes, in some things."

"But, Aunt Mary, such precocious sobriety and wisdom are unnatural and unwholesome. Davie is too wise and grave for his years."

"He is not too wise to do very foolish things sometimes; and he is the merriest among the children at home, though we don't hear his voice quite so often as Jem's. And you must remember that Davie's experience has been very different from yours."

"Yes, Aunt Mary, I know. Frank has told me how happy you all were, and how Davie was always so much with his father. It must have been very terrible for you all."

"And, Philip, Davie has tried to take his father's place among us.

Davie is our bread-winner, in a measure. We have had many cares and anxieties together. No wonder that he seems to you to be grave and older than his years."

"Aunt Mary, what an idle, good-for-nothing fellow you must think me,"

said Philip, putting down little Mary, who had been sitting on his knee, and standing before his aunt.

"Not good-for-nothing, certainly. Perhaps, a little idle and thoughtless. There is time for improvement and--room. Let us hope you will know your own mind soon, which you certainly do not now."

"Let us hope so," said Philip, with a sigh. "Here comes Davie! Now, observe him! He will not look in the least glad to see me."

"Where are all the rest?" said Davie, coming in.

"Davie, do you know, I have been persuading your mother to let you go with me to the Red River," said Philip. "Wouldn't you like it?"

"It is very good of you. Yes, I dare say I would like it. What does mamma say?"

"She thinks you are too useful a man to be spared so long. What would Mr Caldwell do without you?"

"When are you coming to help him?" said David.

"After I come home in the autumn. I cannot bring myself to Davie's standard of steadiness all at once, Aunt Mary. I must have a little time."

"There is none to lose," said Mrs Inglis gravely.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

About this time it was announced to the world in general, that Miss Oswald's marriage was to take place immediately. Her friends thought she had been very kind and considerate to stay with her father and her brothers and sisters so long. Miss Oswald was a discreet young lady, and knew how to manage her own affairs to her own satisfaction. Perhaps the knowledge that her own establishment must be in a different style from that of her father's, helped her considerateness a little, and made her more willing to continue at home. However that might be, when her father set before her certain reasons for economy in household matters, for decided retrenchment indeed, she very considerately suggested that her Aunt Livy would be a very suitable person to see her father's wishes in this direction carried out, and advised that she should be sent for, and then she set about her own preparations. With these, of course, no one at the bridge house had anything to do, except Violet. But for the glimpses that she had behind the scenes, she might have been a little dazzled and unsettled by the gaiety and splendour in the midst of which she found herself. For Miss Oswald's arrangements were on the grandest scale. Everything that she considered "proper" on the occasion, she exacted to the uttermost, with no thoughts of necessary economy. There were fine clothes, fine presents, a fine wedding breakfast, and the proper number of fine brides-maids, of whom Violet was one.

Even the wise and sensible Letty was not above a feeling of girlish delight in being prettily dressed and admired as one of the gay company; but the knowledge that she was only chosen at the last minute to supply the place of a young lady whose illness had disarranged Miss Oswald's plans, and a few other drawbacks, kept her from being unduly elated with the honour and pleasure, and she was very glad when it was all over, and so was everybody concerned. So Miss Oswald went away. Mrs Mavor and Miss Livy came to the big house to reign in her stead, and all in it were beginning to settle down to a quiet and happy summer again.

But trouble came first. Scarlet fever had broken out in the neighbourhood of the bridge house, and in other parts of the town, and first little Polly took it, and then Jessie and Ned, and Violet came home to help her mother to nurse them. They were not very ill--that is, the fever did not run very high, and at no time did the doctor suppose them to be in danger, but there was much anxiety and fatigue in taking care of them. The weather was very hot, too, and the bridge house stood too low to catch the infrequent breeze, and though they were soon able to be up and even to be out of doors, the children did not get strong.

In the meantime both Charlotte and Sarah Oswald had taken the disease, and Mr Oswald himself came to the bridge house to entreat that Violet might be permitted to come to them. Their sister Selina had gone away after the wedding to visit in a distant city, and as she had never had the disease, her father did not like to send for her to come home. The children did not take to their aunt. It had been possible to get on when they were very ill, but when they began to be better they were peevish and fretful, and Aunt Livy could not please them, and nothing would do but Violet must come to them again. It did not seem possible that she could leave home, but David was to be spared as much as possible to help with the little ones, and so she went.

But between her anxiety for the children at home, and her weariness with the little Oswalds, she had rather a hard time of it. Frank helped her for a while, but he was not very well, and was threatened with the old trouble in his eyes, so that he was not a very cheerful companion, either for her or the children. Mr Philip had commenced an irregular sort of attendance at the bank, but he had a good deal of time still at his disposal, and kindly bestowed a share of it on his little sisters.

"Philip could be very nice when he liked," they agreed, and he very often "liked" about this time.

He went sometimes to the bridge house, too, and was as popular as ever among the little people there. They were not getting well very fast.

Charlotte and Sarah were up and out in the garden, and able to amuse themselves with their dolls and their games, when Violet, going home one day, found Jessie and Ned languid and fretful, and poor wee Polly lying limp and white in her cot. Her mother looked worn and anxious, David came home with a headache, and Jem was the only one among them whose health and spirits were in a satisfactory condition.

"I cannot stay to-night, mamma, because they expect me back," said Violet. "But I shall come home to-morrow. They don't need me half as much as you do, and I must come. You are sick yourself, mamma."

"No, I am tired, that is all; and the weather is so warm. Don't come till the children are well. It is your proper place there, and even you cannot help us here while the weather is so warm."

It was very hot and close, and Violet fancied that from the low fields beyond, where there was water still standing, a sickly odour came.

"No wonder they don't get strong," said she.

Mr Oswald had spoken in the morning about sending his little girls to the country, or to the seaside. The doctor had suggested this as the best thing that could be done for them. Violet thought of their large house, with its many rooms, and of the garden in which it stood, and looked at her little sisters and brothers growing so pale and languid in the close air, which there was no hope of changing, with a feeling very like envy or discontent rising in her heart.

"Mamma," said she, "it is a dreadful thing to be poor;" and then she told of the plan for sending the Oswalds away for change of air, and how they were already well and strong in comparison to their own poor darlings, and then she said, again, "It is a dreadful thing to be so poor."

"We are not so poor as we might be?" said her mother, gravely. "Think how it would have been if we had lost one of them, dear. G.o.d has been very good to us, and we must not be so ungrateful as to murmur because we have not all that others have, or all that we might wish for."

"I know it, mamma. But look at these pale cheeks. Poor wee Polly! she is only a shadow of our baby. If we could only send her to Gourlay for a little while."

"Do you think her looking so poorly? I think it is the heat that is keeping them all so languid. Don't look so miserable. If it is necessary for them to go to the country, we shall manage to send them in some way. But we are quite in the country here, and when we have had rain the air will be changed, and the heat may be less, and then they will all be better."

"Have you made any plan about going to the country?" asked Violet, eagerly.

"No, my dear. I trust it will not be necessary. It could not be easily managed," said Mrs Inglis, with a sigh.

"If we were only not quite so poor," said Violet.

"I say, Letty, don't you think mamma has trouble enough without your bother?" said Jem, sharply, as his mother went out of the room. Violet looked at him in astonishment.

"If we were only not quite so poor!" repeated Jem, in the doleful tone she had used. "You have said that three times within half an hour. You had better stay up at the big house, if that is all the good you can do by coming home."

"That will do, Jem! Don't spoil your sermon by making it too long,"

said David, laughing.

"Sermon! No, I leave that to you, Davie. But what is the use of being so dismal? And it isn't a bit like Letty."

"But, Jem, it is true. The children look so ill, and if they could only get a change of air--"

"And don't you suppose mamma knows all that better than you can tell her? What is the good of telling her? She has been looking all day for you to come and cheer us up and brighten us a little, and now that you have come you are as dismal as--I don't know what. You have been having too easy times lately, and can't bear hardness," said Jem, severely.

"Have I?" said Violet, with an uncertain little laugh.

"Softly, Jem, lad!" said his mother, who had come in again. "I think she has been having a rather hard time, only it will not do her much good to tell her so."

"I dare say Jem is right, mamma, and I am cross."

"Not cross, Letty, only dismal, which is a great deal worse, I think,"

said Jem.