“Only to teach my Jessie, that she ought to be less abrupt in her manners. You should have stated your case first, and then have asked me your question.”
“So I should, Ma,” said Jessie, musing a few moments, and gazing on her foot, as she traced the outline of the carpet-pattern with it. Then smiling, she looked up, and added, “but you know, Mamma, it is my way, to speak first, and think afterwards.”
“Not a very wise way, either,” said Mrs. Carlton; “but about those shirts, why do you wish to make them?”
Jessie told her mother about Jack’s letter, and what the widow had said.
“Well,” replied Mrs. Carlton; “I will give you the cloth, and cut out the shirts, if you really wish to make them.”
“I do, Mother, very much wish to do it. Only think how glad the widow will be, and how comfortable the shirts will make the poor sick boy, in that horrid hospital.”
“Very true, my dear, but how about your uncle’s slippers, and cushion, and watch-pocket?”
A blush tinged Jessie’s cheek again. The little wizard had once more hurried her into a new plan before her old ones had been worked out. Plainly she could not help poor Jack and keep her former resolution, not to be turned aside from finishing her gifts for Uncle Morris. She was fairly puzzled. It was right to make shirts for a poor boy. It was right to keep her purposes too. Yet she could not do both. But did not the boy need the shirts, more than Uncle Morris did his slippers? Would not her uncle be willing to wait? No doubt he would, but then her promise to finish the slippers before beginning any thing else, was part of a plan for conquering a bad habit. Would it be right to depart from that plan?
Such were the questions which floated like unpleasant dreams through Jessie’s mind as she sat with her hands on the back of a chair-seat, knocking her heels against the floor. Her mother, though she allowed her to think awhile in silence, read her thoughts in the workings of her face. When Jessie seemed to be lost in the fog of her own thoughts, Mrs. Carlton came to her aid, and said:
“Jessie.”