"My lord," she said, addressing him with great candour and firmness, "I have given your proposal the most careful consideration, and willing as I am to oblige you, and to discharge a Christian duty, I find that I cannot conscientiously undertake the management of your school. I have six children. The eldest a boy of nine years old, the youngest a baby of only three months."
"We are too poor, my lord, to keep a servant. I take care of my own children, and do the work of the house. Henry is too young to be entrusted with the charge of so many little ones during my absence at school, and my mind would be so full of anxiety about them, that I could not attend to my scholars as I could wish. I hope you will take these unfortunate circumstances as a sufficient apology for my declining the situation."
"We are all called upon to make sacrifices for the good of our fellow-creatures, Mrs. Martin, but we must not do so at the expense of more sacred duties. I should be sorry to lay upon you, my dear madam, a burthen greater than the one you have already to bear. Now listen to what I have to propose, and I think we can arrange the matter to our mutual satisfaction. Mr. Conyers, the vicar, allows your husband eighty pounds a year for his ministerial services. A small remuneration for a well-educated man, and a good preacher, who has to support a large family and pay rent for the cottage in which he resides.
"The vicar draws from the parish an income of fifteen hundred per annum, and could afford to give more. I now propose to allow you one hundred a year for taking charge of my school. Will you accept my terms, and by so doing confer upon me a great obligation?"
Mrs. Martin burst into tears. "Oh, my lord, it would make our desert blossom as the rose, and give the poor children bread and meat, where they now only get a scanty supply of bread and milk. In our daily prayers, we shall not forget to ask our Heavenly Father to bless you for your munificence."
"I am not quite so disinterested and benevolent as you think me," returned the lord of the manor, deeply moved by her tears, for Mrs. Martin was the last person in the world from whom he would have expected such a display of feeling.