“Oh, Miss Hetty!” cried Nan, “don't you go set in that chair: you'll die before the year 's out if you do. Oh please, Miss Hetty! get right up;” and the poor old woman took forcible hold of her young mistress's arms, and tried to lift her from the chair.
“To please you, I will sit in another chair now, Nan, because I want you to be quiet and listen to me. But that will be my chair to sit in always, just as it used to be my father's; and I shall not die before the year 's out, Nan, nor I hope for a great many years to come yet,” said Hetty.
“Oh, no! please the Lord, Miss Hetty,” sobbed Nan: “who'd take care of Cæsar an' me ef you was to die.”
“But I expect you and Cæsar to take care of me, Nan,” replied Hetty, smiling, “and I want to have a good talk with you now, and make you understand about our life here. You want to please me, don't you, Nan?”
“Oh, yes! Miss Hetty. You knows I do, and so does Cæsar. We wouldn't have no other missus, not in all these Norf States: we'd sooner go back down where we was raised.” Hetty smiled involuntarily at this violent comparison, knowing well that both Cæsar and Nan would have died sooner than go back to the land where they were “raised.” But she went on,—
“Very well. You never need have any other mistress as long as I live: and when I die you and Cæsar will have money enough to make you comfortable, and a nice little house. Now the first thing I want you to understand is that we are going to live on here in this house, exactly as we did when my father was here. I shall carry on the farm exactly as he would if he were alive; that is, as nearly as I can. Now you will make it very hard for me, if you cry and are lonesome, and say such things as you said to-night. If you want to please me, you will go right on with your work cheerfully, and behave just as if your master were sitting there in his chair all the time. That is what will please him best, too, if he is looking on, as I don't doubt he very often will be.”
“But is you goin' to be here all alone, Miss Hetty? yer don't know what yer a layin' out for, yer don't,” interrupted Nan.
“No,” replied Hetty: “Mr. James Little and his wife are coming here to stay. He will be overseer of the farm.”
“What! Her that was Sally Newhall?” exclaimed Nan, in a sharp tone.
“Yes, that was Mrs. Little's name before she was married,” replied Hetty, looking Nan full in the face with a steady expression, intended to restrain any farther remarks on the subject of Mrs. Little. But Nan was not to be restrained.