“Yes, child, if it be reasonable,” said she. “What would you have?”
“Please, Grandmamma, will you ask Hatty to come for a little while? I should so like to have her; and I cannot talk to her comfortably in a room full of people.”
Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff, as she generally does when she wants to consider a minute.
“She is very much improved,” said she. “She really is almost presentable. I should not feel ashamed, I think, of introducing her as my grand-daughter. Well, Cary, if you wish it, I do not mind. You are a tolerably good girl, and I do not object to give you a pleasure. But it must be after she has finished her visit to the Crosslands. I could not entice her away.”
“I asked her how long she was going to stay there, Grandmamma, and she said she did not know.”
“Then, my dear, you must wait till she do.” (Note 1.)
But what may happen before then? I knew it would be of no use to say any more to Grandmamma: she is a perfect Mede and Persian when she have once declared her royal pleasure. And my Aunt Dorothea will never interfere. My Uncle Charles is the only one who dare say another word, and it was a question if he would. He is good-natured enough, but so careless that I could not feel at all certain of enlisting him. Oh dear! I do feel to be growing so old with all my cares! It seems as if Hatty, and Annas, and Flora, and Angus, and Colonel Keith, and the Prince,—I beg his pardon, he should have come first,—were all on my shoulders at once. And I don’t feel strong enough to carry such a lot of people.
I wish my Aunt Kezia was here. I have wished it so many times lately.
When I had written so far, I turned back to look at my Aunt Kezia’s rules. And then I saw how foolish I am. Why, instead of putting the Lord first, I had been leaving Him out of the whole thing. Could He not carry all these cares for me? Did He not know what ailed Hatty, and how to deliver Angus, and all about it? I knelt down there and then (I always write in my own chamber), and asked Him to send Hatty to me, and better still, to bring her to Him; and to show me whether I had better speak to my Uncle Charles, or try to get things out of Amelia. As to Charlotte, I would not ask her about anything which I did not care to tell the town crier.
The next morning—(there, my dates are getting all wrong again! It is no use trying to keep them straight)—as my Uncle Charles was putting on his gloves to go out, he said,—