“They needn’t be in this town. There are, no doubt, plenty of farmhouses in the surrounding country where we may get them very cheap, and very wholesome and pleasant.” “Yes; but how are we to pay, even for the cheapest?” “Jimmy Campbell! You a minister of the gospel, and have no more faith than to ask such a question! If you have lost your position here, and if we must leave the pleasant rectory, still we are three able-bodied people, who, if we do the best we can, and work at any honest thing our hands may find to do, will be helped by the Lord, and will do very well and pay our way.” “Oh, Hetty, my dear, you have had no experience in a bitter struggle with the world!” “If I have not, it is well, perhaps, that I should have. And I am ready to engage in the struggle, though I do not see why it need be a bitter one, but just a healthful one.” “You have a healthful nature, dear, that is certain. As for me, I sometimes think I am falling weak in body and in mind,” sighed the curate. “No, no, dear Jimmy; not weak, only overworked and weary. Why, you have not had a vacation for eighteen years, to my certain knowledge. So long a strain might have made an idiot or a ‘damp, unpleasant corpse’ of any man less strong and brave than yourself,” said the wife with affectionate fervor. “It helps me to see your faith in me, dear,” he sighed as he took her hand and pressed it. “As for me, Jimmy, I am glad that you will be obliged to rest for a few weeks or months. Don’t doubt. You must rest. It is our turn now. Mine and Jennie’s. We must work.” “You! What in this world could you do?” “A good many things. We—Jennie and I—could teach English and French, music and drawing, to young ladies, or A B C’s to little children. Failing that, we could take in dressmaking or plain sewing. Failing that, I could go out as sick nurse, and Jennie could do up fine laces.” “Hetty, you talk wildly.” “Not at all. Unless you preach wildly. I am only going to put into practice what you preach. You tell the artisans and agricultural laborers that work is worship.” “I would not mind your teaching——” slowly began the curate. “Of course you would not,” promptly assented his wife; “and I should prefer it. Teaching is, conventionally, considered a very ‘genteel’ occupation for a poor lady. And for that, and a few other unworthy reasons, I would rather teach than do anything else. But if I cannot get teaching to do I hope I am Christian enough to take whatever work I can get, whether it should be dressmaking, plain sewing, sick nursing, or—washing and ironing. There! Even that! I am ashamed of myself for even preferring a ‘genteel’ occupation to an humble one which is equally useful. But I won’t let my feelings govern me in this; and so sure as you have to leave your situation here, you shall take a rest after twenty years’ hard labor, and Jennie and I will go to work at whatever we can get to do.” “Hetty, you amaze and distract me! You do, indeed!”