Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/63

 enter into conversation with me, asking me how long I had been at service, and other kindly questions.

"Four years at service, and not yet fifteen!" said she; "poor girl! your parents must have been in great distress to part with you so soon."—"I had no parents, Ma'am," said I; "my father was carried off in a fever before I was born, and my mother died ten years after; and then my lady was so good as let me come here to learn to be a servant."

"And you were thankful for getting leave to come to learn to be a servant?" said Miss Osburne; "what a lesson for me!" She seemed for some moments busied in thought; and then, speaking to me again, "You are right to be thankful, Betty; God Almighty, who is the father of the fatherless, will never forsake us while we trust in Him; and we ought to submit ourselves to all His dispensations, and even to be thankful for those that appear the darkest."