“If you like everything, and are willing to work, you won’t be long in finding your vocation, I fancy. Meanwhile take care of Mrs. Munson, and in three days I will come again,” he said, with a kindly nod. Then he rode through the gate which Nell opened for him, and he was soon out of sight round the bend in the trail.
Nell walked back to the house in a thoughtful mood; her fancy was busy with that other girl who had promised to come, but had forgotten through stress of other things.
“Suppose she had come, what should I have done?” she murmured with a sudden catch of her breath, for her plight had been a very desperate one; then, because she was by nature unselfish, she quickly thought of the other side of the question, “What would Mrs. Munson have done if no one had come?”
As she paused on the threshold, looking round at the glory of the outdoor world before entering the house, some words of her dead father, spoken in the last days of his life, came into her mind.
“We are all a part of God’s great plan, and there is a niche for every one of us to fill, so let us see that neither by discontent nor fear we spoil the Creator’s purpose concerning us.”
CHAPTER VIII
Moved on
THE next three days were filled with much hard work, heavy nursing, and considerable anxiety for Nell.
Mrs. Munson was slowly mending, but now that she was on the high-road to recovery, she was quite positive that she was on the point of dying, and harassed her long-suffering nurse accordingly.
Since his aunt was getting better, Giles Bailey was able to turn his attention to the outdoor work, which had been neglected before Nell’s arrival, and he was abroad in his fields from dawn to dark, only coming into the house to eat and to sleep.