"Dear Patty!" said he.
I drew back, and would have left the Room, but he gently detained me, and led me to a Chair next the Fire.
"I was quite unprepared to hear of this domestic Calamity," said he, "and have been greatly moved by it. Your good Mother has been telling me how admirably you have behaved. She wept about it, and said never was such a Daughter."
This set my Tears flowing again—I said there was Nothing out of the Common in a Daughter's tending of a Parent she loved. He did not dwell on it; but went on to talk as only a good, feeling, and faithful Minister, a holy, high-minded, heavenly spirited Servant of God can talk. I know not how long this delightful Conversation lasted; perhaps an Hour; and when he went away, he said he would soon come again. From that Moment, I was a new Creature: quite fresh, quite able to return anew to my Post. My Heart was full of Peace. If the Body sometimes bears down the Mind, the Mind sometimes wondrously sustains the Body.
This was, however, a joyless Christmas to us all. Not one of the Family was able to leave the House to go to Church; and though roast Beef and Plum-pudding were dressed, they were sparingly and sadly partaken of. My loved Mother forgot not, however, to send Portions to sundry poor Widows and Mothers who were habituated to come to us for our stale Pastry, Broken-meat, and Cinders.
When my Father began to recover a little, he became curious to hear me talk about my Visit to Larkfield; and he made me minutely describe Gatty's Family, and the Family at Roaring House. In a very little While he settled it to his own Satisfaction that Gatty would some Day be Mrs. Heavitree. But when he heard of her being recalled to Servitude by Lady Betty, of her perilous, protracted Journey, and of her finding my Lady in the Small-Pox, he became greatly perturbed. "What," says he, "have not one of you had so much Humanity nor even so much Curiosity, (a Quality, one would think, not often lacking in your Sex,) as to ascertain whether this poor Girl sink or swim?"
"Dear Father, we have been so busied about you...."
"Fiddlesticks' Ends! I have never had more than one of you about me at a Time; and has everything else been at a Stand-still? Have your Shop-shutters been put up, have your Customers been kept out, have you intermitted your Baking and your Milking? Pshaw! I'm nauseated with such a false Excuse. If you couldn't go, you might write; if you could not write, you might send; if you could not spare one of the Men, you might have sent a Boy for Two-pence. Let me hear by To-morrow Morning, I insist upon't, whether Mrs. Gatty be alive or dead."
He was quite in a Turmoil about it, and for my Part, I was glad enough to be commissioned to send; and as Peter knew the House, I contrived he should go that same Afternoon, and ask for Mr. James, and inquire how fared Mrs. Gatty and Lady Betty—bidding him be sure he put Lady Betty's Name first, or they would think we knew no Manners.