“No, my dear,” said Mrs. Lee, quietly. “I do not like to leave Aunt Barbara with no one to wait upon her. I promised Betsy, yesterday, that she should go out this morning, and Jane will be busy with the baby and Harry.”
Hatty was silent for a moment; a struggle was going on in her mind. At length she looked up with a beautiful, bright expression on her face, and said, “I will stay with Aunt Barbara, if you could trust her with me. I do not want you to be kept at home.”
Mrs. Lee knew the effort it must have cost her little girl to give up the pleasure for which she had been so eagerly preparing, but she did not refuse her kind offer.
“Thank you, my darling; I shall feel quite easy leaving Aunt Barbara with you. ‘I was sick and ye visited me,’ our Saviour says, and then adds, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.’ That thought makes taking care of the sick doubly pleasant. And now, darling, instead of putting on your own things, which are all laid out so nicely, you will have to help me to get ready.”
Hatty was glad to be kept very busy that she might not have a moment to regret her choice, and she made herself so actively useful, that Mrs. Lee was not at all too late in joining the group waiting for her in the hall below.
“Why! are you not going, Hatty?” exclaimed Marcus, as his sister appeared at her mother’s side.
“Hatty is going to stay with Aunt Barbara. She may need some attention, and I did not like to leave her alone,” said Mrs. Lee.
Marcus looked up in surprise. He knew with what eagerness Hatty had spoken in the morning of being at church, and could not but wonder at the sudden change,—she looked so cheerful. One glance at the sweet, bright expression of her face, convinced him of the generous motive that had kept her at home. Marcus began to think there was some strength in Hatty’s new resolution to do right.