“Jessie, I’m afraid I haven’t behaved well since I came to Glen Morris.”
Jessie again thought with Emily, and again her politeness and sincerity kept her silent. Emily went on.
“You have been very kind to me and Charlie. I’m sorry we haven’t made ourselves more agreeable to you.”
“Oh! never mind that,” said Jessie. “I hope you will come and see me again, one of these days.”
Emily then went on to tell Jessie about her thoughts and feelings. She had not forgotten the advice of Uncle Morris, nor had Jessie’s example been without its influence over her. True, her old habits of self-will and falsehood, had acted the part of tyrants over her. Yet she had been secretly wishing to be like Jessie. These wishes, frail as they had proved themselves to be, showed that good seed from Jessie’s example had been sown in her heart. Now that she was about to return home, all her better feelings were awake, and she begged forgiveness of her cousin, promising to do her best, hereafter, to be a good, truthful, affectionate girl.
All this and much more, she said to Jessie, before they slept that night. These confessions and purposes did Emily good. They also cheered Jessie, by causing her to hope that after all, she might be to her cousin, what Guy had been to Richard Duncan.
The next morning, directly after breakfast, the hack drove up to the door, and the cousins were borne away to the depot in care of Mr. Carlton. As the carriage left the lawn, Uncle Morris patted his niece on the head, and said:
“As vinegar to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes, so are self-willed guests to those who entertain them.”
“O Uncle Morris!” exclaimed Jessie, with an air of mock gravity, which showed that, harsh as her uncle’s remark sounded, she felt its justice. In fact, the departure of the ungracious cousins was to the inmates of Glen Morris, like the flight of the angry storm-cloud to a company of mariners, after weary weeks of squalls and tempests.