“Oh, no,” said the girl. “Oh, Uncle John, come quick, come quick! and you will see that we must have it. Mrs. Moffatt will give it when she sees you. Not for me, perhaps, but for you. You will say that something has been forgotten, that another word has to be put in, that--oh, Uncle John when we are there it will come into our heads what to say----”
“Take no thought beforehand what you shall speak, Effie,” said the minister, half smiling, half admonishing; “is it so serious as that?”
He suffered her to lead him down the slope of the manse garden, out upon the road, her light figure foremost, clinging to his arm, yet moving him along; he, heavier, with so much of passive resistance as his large frame, and only half responsive will, gave.
“Oh yes,” she cried, “it is as serious as that. Uncle John, was not that what our Lord said when His men that He sent out were to stand for Him and not to forsake Him? And to desert your friends when they are in trouble, to turn your back upon them when they need you, to give them up because they are poor, because they are unfortunate, because they have lost everything but you----”
She was holding his arm so closely, urging him on, that he felt the heaving of her heart against his side, the tremor of earnestness in her whole frame as she spoke.
“Effie, my little girl! what strait are you in, that you are driven to use words like these?”
Her voice sounded like a sob in her throat, which was parched with excitement.
“I am in this strait, Uncle John, that he has lost everything, and they have written to say I take back my word. No, no, no,” cried Effie, forcing on with feverish haste the larger shadow by her side. “I will never do it--it shall not be. They made me take him when he was rich, and now that he is poor I will stand by him till I die.”
“My little Effie!” was all the minister said. She still hurried him along, but yet he half carried her with an arm round her slender figure. What with agitation and the unaccustomed conflict in her mind, Effie’s slight physical frame was failing her. It was her heart and soul that were pushing on. Her brain swam, the village lights fluttered in her eyes, her voice had gone altogether, lost in the climbing sob which was at once breath and utterance. She was unconscious of everything save her one object, to be in time, to recover the letter, to avert that cowardly blow.