Bessie and Her Friends

by Joanna H. Mathews

But Maggie only answered by a new burst of sobs, and Bessie spoke for her. "She's Aunt Patty, Uncle Yuthven; she says she is."

"Well," said Uncle Ruthven, more puzzled than ever, for he knew little of Mrs. Lawrence, save that she was Mr. Bradford's aunt, "and do you welcome her with such an uproar as this? Tell me where nurse is, Bessie."

As he spoke, nurse herself came in, answering his question with, "Here I am, sir, and—"

Nurse, in her turn, was so astonished by the unexpected sight of Aunt Patty that she stood quite still, gazing at her old enemy. But, as she afterwards said, she presently "recollected her manners," and dropping a stiff courtesy to Mrs. Lawrence, she took the baby from Mr. Stanton, and in a few words explained the cause of her ten minutes' absence. The tearful faces of her nurslings, and that of Aunt Patty, flushed and angry, gave nurse a pretty good guess how things had been going while she had been away, but she saw fit to ask no questions.

"My lady is out, ma'am," she said, with a grim sort of politeness to Mrs. Lawrence, "and I think she was not looking for you just now, or she would have been at home."

Then Mr. Stanton introduced himself, and asking Mrs. Lawrence if she would let him play the part of host till his sister came home, he offered the old lady his arm, and led her away.

Poor Aunt Patty! she scarcely knew what to do. The old angry, jealous temper and the new spirit which had lately come to dwell in her heart were doing hard battle, each striving for the victory. She thought, and not without reason, that her nephew's little children must have been taught to fear and dislike her, when they could receive her in such a manner; and the evil spirit said, "Go, do not remain in a house where you have been treated so. Leave it, and never come back to it. You have been insulted! do not bear it! Tell these people what you think of their unkindness, and never see them again." But the better angel, the spirit of the meek and lowly Master, of whom she was striving to learn, said, "No, stay, and try to overcome evil with good. This is all your own fault, the consequence of your own ungoverned and violent temper. Your very name has become a name of fear to these innocent children; but you must bear it, and let them find they have no longer cause to dread you. And do not be too proud to let their parents see that you are sorry for the past, and wish it to be forgotten. If this is hard, and not what you would have expected, remember how much they have borne from you in former days; how patient and gentle and forbearing they were."

Then, as her anger cooled down, she began to think how very unlikely it was that Mr. or Mrs. Bradford had said or done anything which could cause their children to act in the way Maggie and Bessie had done that morning. This was probably the work of others who remembered how perverse and trying she had been during her last visit. And Aunt Patty was forced to acknowledge to herself that it was no more than she deserved, or might have looked for.

And so, trying to reason herself into better humor, as she thought the matter over, she began to see its droll side (for Aunt Patty had a quick sense of fun) and to find some amusement mingling with her vexation at the singular conduct of the children.