Page:A New England Tale.djvu/105

94 as a sense of duty. It is good for me to bear this yoke in my youth."

"No doubt, no doubt, my dear child; but then you know if there is a way of escape opened to you, it would be but a tempting of Providence not to avail yourself of it. It is right to endure necessary evils with patience, but I know no rule that forbids your getting rid of them, if you can." Mary Hull was not a woman to leave any stone unturned, when she had a certain benefit in view for her favourite. "Now, dear Jane," said she, "I have one more plan to propose to you, and though it will cost you some pain, I think you will finally see it in the same light that I do. I always thought it was not for nothing Providence moved the hearts of the creditors to spare you all your dear mother's clothes, seeing she had a good many that could not be called necessary; nor was it a blind chance that raised you up such a friend as Mr. Lloyd in a stranger. Now, if you will consent to it, I will undertake to dispose of the articles Mr. Lloyd sent to you, and your mother's lace and shawls, and all the little nick-nacks she left; it shall go hard but I will raise a hundred dollars."

"But, Mary," said Jane, wishing, perhaps, to conceal from herself even the involuntary reluctance she felt to the proposal, "aunt Wilson will never consent to it."

"The consent that is not asked," replied Mary, "cannot be refused. It is but speaking to Mr. Evertson, and he will keep our counsel, for he is