When Dr. Macgowan said to Hetty:
“You do not look as if you had ever had any very hard trouble of any kind,” Hetty looked in his face eagerly, and answered:
“Do I not, really? I am so thankful, doctor! I have always had such a dread of looking woe-begone, and making everybody around me uncomfortable. I think that's a sin, if one can possibly help it.”
And by no sudden surprise of remark or question, could the doctor ever come any nearer to Hetty's trouble than this. Her words always glanced off from direct personal issues, as subtlely and successfully as if she had been a practised diplomatist. Sometimes these perpetual evadings and non-committals seemed to Dr. Macgowan like art; but they were really the very simplicity of absolute unselfishness; and, gradually, as he came to perceive and understand this, he came to have a reverence for Hetty. He began to be ashamed of the curiosity he had felt as to the details of the sorrow which had driven her to this refuge of isolation and hard work. He began to feel about her as Father Antoine did, that there was a certain sacredness in her vocation which almost demanded a recognition of title, an investiture of office. Hetty would have been astonished, and would have very likely laughed, had she known with what a halo of sentiment her daily life was fast being surrounded in the minds of people. To her it was simply a routine of good, wholesome work; of a kind for which she was best fitted, and which enabled her to earn a comfortable living most easily to herself, and most helpfully to others; and left her “less time to think,” as she often said to herself, “than any thing else I could possibly have done.” “Time to think” was the one thing Hetty dreaded. As resolutely as if they were a sin, she strove to keep out of her mind all reminiscences of her home, all thoughts of her husband, of Raby. Whenever she gave way to them, she was unfitted for work; and, therefore, her conscience said they were wrong. While she was face to face with suffering ones, and her hands were busy in ministering to their wants, such thoughts never intruded upon her. It was literally true that, in such hours, she never recollected that she was any other than Hibba Smailli, the nurse. But, when her day's work was done, and she went home to the little lonely cottage, memories flocked in at the silent door, shut themselves in with her, and refused to be banished. Hence she formed the habit of lingering in the street, of chatting with the villagers on their door-steps, playing with the children, and often, when there was illness in any of the houses, going into them, and volunteering her services as nurse.
The St. Mary's people were, almost without exception, of French descent, and still kept up many of the old French customs of out-door fêtes and ceremonies. Hetty found their joyous, child-like ways and manners singularly attractive and interesting. After the grim composure, and substantial, reflective methods of her New England life, the abandon and unthinkingness of these French-Canadians were bewildering and delightful to her.
“The whole town is every night like a Sunday-school picnic in our country,” she said once to Father Antoine. “What children all these people are!”
“Yes, daughter, it is so,” replied the priest; “and it is well. Does not our good Lord say that we cannot enter into His kingdom except we become as little children?”
“Yes, I know,” replied Hetty; “but I don't believe this is exactly what he meant, do you?”
“A part of what he meant,” answered the priest; “not all. First, docility; and, second, joy: that is what the Church teaches.”
“Your Church is better than ours in that respect,” said Hetty candidly: “ours doesn't teach joy; it is pretty much all terror.”