The Mountain Girl - 22 - Emma Payne Erskine - Web Novel

IN WHICH DAVID TAKES LITTLE HOYLE TO CANADA

"David," said his wife next day, as he came whistling up to his cabin from the farm below, "do you mind if I give mother a little help with the weaving? Mattie can't do it. She's right nigh spoiled the counterpane we had on when she came, and since mother's hurt, she can't work the treadles, so now the hotel's open Miss Mayhew may come and find them not half done."

"Do I mind? Why should I mind, if you don't 'right nigh' spoil your back and wear yourself out?"

"Then I'll go down with you after dinner and see can I patch up Mattie's mistakes. It takes so much patience—a loom does, to understand it."

Mattie was the cousin David had imported from the low country to relieve Cassandra from the burden of the work in the home below. Although a disappointment to them, she still did her work after her own fashion, clumsily and slowly, but her Aunt 'Marthy' was never at rest, prodding the dull nature forward, trying to make her take the interest Cassandra had done.

David had wisely persuaded his wife to leave them to themselves, to work out the problem of adjustment to the new conditions as best they might, and his persuasions had been of a more peremptory nature than he realized. To Cassandra they had been as commands, but now—when the weaving on which the widow had counted so much was likely to be ruined by