SIR WILLIAM PENN.
BESSIE WESTLAND went back, feeling that, after all, the work she had felt disposed to despise at first might be as needful for the help and growth of the Society of Friends as preaching itself. Certainly if their friends in prison were to be supported by those outside, someone must work for their daily bread, and the thought that in this way she could be of real service to her own mother and father was a great comfort to the girl.
She had been to Bridewell to see her mother, and to Newgate to see her father, and she knew how both were looking forward to meeting her and the little ones in some colony across the sea; but how this was to be accomplished Bessie did not know, and it seemed altogether too good to expect that there would be a place where Quakers could live unmolested this side of heaven.
But as she reached the door she resolved to do what she could in the present, leaving the future in God's hands, for she could do nothing beyond helping to make hats as diligently as she could.
That Dame Drayton was ill and unable to take any share in the management of her husband's business, was soon known throughout the little Quaker community in London, and before night a man was found able and willing to supply the place of Master Drayton in finishing and superintending the work of the apprentices, for they had not forsaken the work, as it was anticipated they would do. It spoke volumes for the love they bore their master and his family, that they were willing to continue in the service of a man who henceforth would be branded as a Quaker, and Deborah was not slow to recognise this.
She resolved to keep the household going as nearly as possible in the way she knew her mistress would desire it should be done, and with Audrey in the sick chamber to look after the invalid, she could do the baking and boiling and attend to the housework. So before night the household had settled down to its new condition, and no one was more diligent than Bessie Westland in doing with all her might the lowly work she had suddenly found to be honourable, even among those who esteemed the work of the Lord to be the highest duty of a Quaker.
There was no formal gathering at the dinner table that day, but Deborah carried the apprentices a huge piece of pasty to the workshop, while Bessie ate her dinner in the kitchen with the children.
But when the day's work was over, Dame Drayton insisted that Audrey should go downstairs and tell Bessie and the children that she was better, and hoped to be up and among them the next day.
Supper had been laid in the keeping-room, and Deborah took her usual seat, and the children gathered to theirs; but they were more sad and subdued than at dinner time, for now mother and father were missed more as they looked at their vacant chairs. It must be confessed that the sight of Bessie Westland was not very pleasant to Audrey, for she regarded her as being the cause of the trouble that had befallen her uncle and aunt, and so she studiously looked away from where she was sitting, and devoted all her attention to her cousins.
But when it grew dusk, and Deborah came to put the children to bed, bringing a message from her mistress that she thought she might sleep if she was left alone, Audrey could not easily escape from the companionship of Bessie; and so, after sitting silent for some time listening to the distant sounds of carts and waggons that rarely came down Soper Lane so late as this, she suddenly said—