“What are you saying, Elsie? Fourscore? Oh, much more than fourscore. It is three hundred pounds,” said Mrs. Buchanan. “Three hundred pounds,” she repeated deliberately, as if the enormity of the sum gave her, under the pain, a certain pleasure. “I have told you about it before. It was for Willie’s outfit, and Marion’s plenishing, and a few other things that were pressing upon us. Old Mr. Anderson was a very kind old man. He said: ‘Take enough--take enough while you are about it: put yourself at your ease while you are about it!’ And so we did, Elsie. I will never forget the feeling I had when I paid off Aitken and the rest who had just been very patient waiting. I felt like Christian in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, when the burden rolled off his back. Oh, my dear! a poor woman with a family to provide, thinks more of her bills than her sins, I am sore afraid!” “Well, mother, those that have to judge know best all about it,” said Elsie, with tears in her voice. “My bonnie dear! You’ll have to give up the ball, Elsie, and your new frock.” “What about that, mother?” cried Elsie, tossing her young head. “Oh, there’s a great deal about it! You think it is nothing now: but when you hear the coaches all driving past, and not a word said among all the young lassies but who was there and what they wore, and who they danced with: and, maybe, even you may hear a sough of music on the air, if the wind’s from the south: it will not be easy then, though your mind’s exalted, and you think it matters little now.” “It will be, maybe--a little--hard,” Elsie assented, nodding her head; “but, if that’s all, mother?” “It will not be all,” said Mrs. Buchanan, once more shaking her head. “It will be day by day, and hour by hour. We will have to do without everything, you and me. Your father, he must not be disturbed, more than we can help; or how is he to do his work? which is work far more important than yours or mine. And Rodie is a growing laddie, wanting much meat, and nothing must interfere with his learning either, or how could we put him out creditably in the world? I tell you it is you and me that will have to put our sheulders to the wheel. Janet is a good, sensible woman, I will take her into my confidence, and she’ll not mind a little more work; but, Betty--oh, my dear, I think we’ll have to give up Betty: and you know what that means.” “It means just the right thing to mean!” cried Elsie, with her countenance glowing. “I am nearly as old as Betty, and I have never done a hand’s turn in my life. It would be strange if I couldn’t do as much for love, as Betty does for wages.” “Ten pounds a year and her keep, which will count, maybe, for fifteen more. Oh Elsie, my dear, to think that I should make a drudge of my own bairn for no more saving than that.”