"Ah, Anne, we cannot make one duty performed a substitute for one omitted."
"Dear me! then you may as well omit them altogether, as I do. But, pray tell me when this new light dawned upon your affairs? Perhaps it was a northern light, up in that barbarous country you removed to?"
"You are right; it was. My husband's affairs compelled us to remove to the St. Lawrence. My nurse was the only person that I could, for love or money, persuade to go with me. Love was her motive. Love, not only for the children, but for us; for before this time I had got on a little in my domestic self-education, and had learned to treat Clara Lane as my friend."
"Bless me! did mammy live with you so long ago?"
"Yes; she it was who taught me not only to appreciate the virtue, but to estimate the power, and respect the dignity of a domestic labourer. Are you not tired, Anne?"
"Dear! no—pray tell me how you got on in that wilderness."
"At first, badly enough. When we were within six miles of our home, Ella was taken ill. We stopped at a log-hut; she was too ill to proceed. There was but one bed that the people could, for any consideration, spare. I wished to remain with my sick child, but the mistress of the hut said 'No, unless I could cook my own victuals, make the child's porridge, and do my own waiting on—the nurse was welcome to stay, but folks warn't plenty enough up there to run after ladies!'"
"What a brute!"
