But poor Susan had no one to appeal to, and she had been given no authority to inflict chastisement herself. She must bear and forbear, and by patience endeavour to overcome evil by good.
"Oh! The bad, bad boy—how he has hurt you!" cried Jessy, indignantly, as Susan drew up her sleeve, and showed the marks left by his cruel teeth on her arm. "I wish I could beat him—I do!"
"When Master Tommy thinks quietly over his conduct, I am sure that he will be sorry that he has hurt his poor nurse," observed Susan, in a tone of gentle reproof.
This was all which she trusted herself to say on the subject.
She occupied herself in quieting and comforting Jessy. The hair of the doll, rudely torn from its head, was picked up by Susan, smoothed, and replaced; a few stitches repaired the doll's dress, which had been rent in the struggle. Jessy was soon made happy again, and then listened with interest to the account given by Susan of her conversation with John. The young nursery-maid forgot her pain when seeing the pleasure caused by the news that sixteen guests instead of eight were likely to be invited to share the hot Irish stew.
Susan, for the rest of the day, took no outward notice of Tom, except by attending to all his wants. It would not be wise or right to treat him as if nothing had happened, until he should ask forgiveness; this would be to make him think lightly of his sin.
Susan's silence towards him was more distressing to the boy than would have been the passionate chiding or even slap which he would have had from Betsy, had he treated her half as ill as he had treated Susan. Tom tried indeed to show that he did not care for being in disgrace, and for the first half-hour made as much noise as he could, spinning his crown-piece, drumming with his feet, and singing snatches of rude songs to make-believe that he was happy. But Tom could not keep up this show for long; Susan's patience tired out his passion. The boy became silent, sulky, and sad; Susan could not help thinking that Tom was ashamed of himself, though too proud to own that he was so.
In the meantime, the young maid made Jessy as happy as possible, playing with or reading to her in a soft low tone, to which Tom could listen if he would, as he sat with his back turned towards her, pulling an old basket to pieces, and scattering the bits on the floor.
When the children's bedtime drew near, Susan, remembering the careless way in which Jessy had said the Lord's Prayer, thought that she could not better employ a few minutes than in giving her charge a short and simple explanation of the holy words, which had so often passed her lips without her mind having an idea of their meaning. Susan took Jessy upon her knee, and explained as well as she could how great and holy is the Being who permits us to call Him "Father," and how the bright, happy angels do His will in the glorious Heaven above. It was sweet to Susan thus to feed her Lord's little lamb.
When Susan came to the fourth petition in the Lord's Prayer, Jessy looked pleasantly into her face and observed, "God always gives me daily bread, and meat, and nice things besides; won't God be pleased that I am going to give some to the poor little hungry children?"