Nell caught her breath in a sudden sob, and then a pair of arms came stealing round her neck, gripping her in such a loving hug that she was nearly choked.
“Nell, dear Nell, I heard all that mother said just now, and it has made me feel so bad that I don’t know what to do. But don’t judge her too hardly, for the deaths of Percy and Arthur seem to have changed her entirely. I have to keep telling myself that all the time, for very often I am tempted to wonder if she has left off loving me,” said Gertrude, whose face was pale and drawn, her eyes red with weeping.
Nell choked back another sob. “I wouldn’t mind so much if I had anywhere else to go. But, being winter, it is hard to find work. There isn’t much out-of-doors just now that a girl can do, and there are women enough about here for all the indoor work, now that the sickness has all gone,” she said, in a worried tone.
“You must not go—you must stay here with us,” answered Gertrude, impulsively.
“I can’t—not a day longer than I can help, that is—for your mother says my keep is a consideration; and oh, Gertrude, it is just awful to be beholden to charity for your food!” Nell said vehemently; and then she scrubbed a section of the floor with tremendous vigour.
Gertrude laughed in a weak, mirthless fashion. “Charity, did you say? Why, Nell, has it never occurred to you how tremendously indebted we are to you? Apart from the loving-kindness you have shown to us all, and which no money could ever pay for, the actual work you have done should have earned you a considerable salary anywhere else. Why, at Bratley, where I am telegraph clerk, a woman would charge half a dollar a day, and then not do half the work that you do. Oh, I know; and I will tell mother just what I think about it all. I should have gone to her then, and said just everything that was in my mind, only father came in, looking so worn and sad that I had no heart nor courage left to make a scene.”
“Gertrude, don’t say anything to her at all about it,” implored Nell, whose misery had been effectually routed by this sweet sympathy and championship. “I don’t mind half so much now I know that you feel sorry I’ve got to go. Only, just at first, it seemed as if nobody cared what became of me, and I felt so dreadfully lonely and outside of everything.”
“Poor Nell! and yet you are not outside at all, if only you knew it,” murmured Gertrude. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she went on, “I’m going to tell you something now that seems too sacred to put into speech, only perhaps you will feel better if you know. Always, when I was lying in bed in the parlour, I could hear what any one was saying in father’s room, and every night when he was keeping his bed too, I could hear him saying his prayers. You know what a quiet, slow-of-speech man he is—but when he is praying it is so different—and it became a positive comfort to me to hear him. He used to pray for us all by name, and every night he thanked God for having sent you to help us, and he used to pray so earnestly for you that you might be repaid for your goodness, and that your future might be taken care of, that I am quite sure you won’t be left unprovided for; and if you do go away, it will be to take higher and better work.”
A glow of happiness came into Nell’s face, the trouble of Mrs. Lorimer’s unkindness faded into an unimportant detail, and she said cheerfully—
“Well, I shan’t trouble anymore about it to-day, and by to-morrow, perhaps, things will look different, or I shall see better about what I’ve got to do next.”