CHAPTER XXVIII. THE TURN OF THE WHEEL.
Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head and a' that,
The coward slave, we pass him by,
A man's a man for a' that.
Burns.
Thinking and acting were alike impossible to Caroline for the
remainder of the day when her daughter left her, but night brought
power of reflection, as she began to look forward to the new day, and
its burthen.
Her headache was better, but she let Barbara again go down to
breakfast without her, feeling that she could not face her sons at
once, and that she needed another study of the document before she
could trust herself with the communication. She felt herself too in
need of time to pray for right judgment and steadfast purpose, and
that the change might so work with her sons that it might be a
blessing, not a curse. Could it be for nothing that the finding of
Magnum Bonum had wrought the undoing of this wrong? That thought,
and the impulse of self-bracing, made her breakfast well on the
dainty little meal sent up to her by the Infanta, and look so much
refreshed, that the damsel exclaimed—-
"You are much better, mother! You will be able to see Jock before he
goes—-"
"Fetch them all, Babie; I have something to tell you-—"
"Writs issued for a domestic parliament," said Allen, presently
entering.
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