And his master, a childless man and very fond
of Bird, offered to adopt one of his boys and take the lad off his hands.
But Jonas clung to all three, because, as he truly said, they each had a
good bit of their mother in 'em and he couldn't spare a pinch of Sarah.
And his wife's first and dearest woman friend it was who came to the
rescue at this season and stopped along with Jonas, for the children's
sake and the dead woman's.
Milly Bassett, she was called, and she ministered to the orphaned children
and talked sense to the widow man; and though an old maid here and there
didn't think it a seemly thing for Milly to take up her life under Bird's
roof, the understanding and intelligent sort thought no evil. For of such
a creature as Milly Bassett no evil could be thought.
She was the finest-minded woman ever came out of Thorpe-Michael in my
opinion, and she only had one idol and that was duty, and when Sarah, on
her death-bed, prayed Milly to watch over Jonas and the family till the
poor man recovered from his sorrows and wed again, then Milly promised to
do so. And her promises were sacred in her eyes. And if any was mean
enough to think ill of her for so doing, she'd have said such folk didn't
know her and their opinions were no matter.
A flaxen woman--grey-eyed and generous built--was Milly. She lived with an
old mother who was a laundress, and the old mother took it very ill when
her daughter went to mind the dead woman's little ones; but, as Milly
herself said, there was only one man who needed to be considered before
she went to her holy task, and that was William White.
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