“Before she was married! Yes'm! an' a good deal too late 'twas she was married too. 'Deed, Miss Hetty, yer ain't never going to take her in to live with you, be yer?” she muttered.
“Yes, I am, Nan,” Hetty said firmly; “and you must never let such a word as that pass your lips again. You will displease me very much if you do not treat Mrs. Little respectfully.”
“But, Miss Hetty,” persisted Nan. “Yer don't know”—
“Yes, I do, Nan: I know it all. But I pity them both very much. We have all done wrong in one way or another; and it is the Lord's business to punish people, not ours. You 've often told me, Nan, about that pretty little girl of yours and Cæsar's that died when I was a baby. Supposing she had lived to be a woman, and some one had led her to do just as wrong as poor Sally Little did, wouldn't you have thought it very hard if the whole world had turned against her, and never given her a fair chance again to show that she was sorry and meant to live a good life?”
Nan was softened.
“'Deed would I, Miss Hetty. But that don't make me feel like seein' that gal a settin' down to table with you, Miss Hetty, now I tell yer! Cæsar nor me couldn't stand that nohow!”
“Yes you can, Nan; and you will, when you know that it would make me very unhappy to have you be unkind to her,” answered Hetty, firmly. “She and her husband both, have done all in their power to atone for their wrong; and nobody has ever said a word against Mrs. Little since her marriage; and one thing I want distinctly understood, Nan, by every one on this place,—any disrespectful word or look towards Mr. or Mrs. Little will be just the same as if it were towards me myself.”
Nan was silenced, but her face wore an obstinate expression which gave Hetty some misgivings as to the success of her experiment. However, she knew that Nan could be trusted to repeat to the other servants all that she had said, and that it would lose nothing in the recital; and, as for the future, one of Hetty's first principles of action was an old proverb which her grandfather had explained to her when she was a little girl,—
“Don't cross bridges till you come to them.”