“I like to please you,” said the woman; “but Matilda is so careless I cannot put up with her.”
“But it really wasn’t her fault this time,” pleaded Bessie; “she says a man ran against her, and knocked it out of her hand when she was carrying it so carefully.”
“And we’ll pay for it if we have enough,” said Maggie.
“And her mother is sick,” said Bessie; “and you know we ought to be sorry and kind to sick people; and you know, too, we ought to forgive as we want to be forgiven. Couldn’t you do it for the sick mother’s sake? And maybe this will be a good lesson to Matilda.”
“I’ll keep her for your sake, and strive to be more patient with her too,” said the house-keeper; “and I think you’ll never lack for comfort and kindness when you’re sick yourselves: at least, not if the Lord repays what’s done for Him, as the good book says He does.”
“And how much must we pay for the pitcher?” asked Bessie.
“Not a penny. I don’t know as Matilda was to blame this time, and I didn’t listen to her story as I should, I own; but I’ve been so put about this morning. You go your ways, you little dears; and Matilda shall stay for your good word.”
Now the children did not know it, but probably the good word of the two little strangers would have gone but little way with the angry house-keeper, had it not been for the kindness done to her sick child the day before; but so it was, and so the one good thing sprang from the other.
They left Montreal the next morning, and then came two long days of railway travelling, ending in Boston. Here they stayed only a few hours, and then started afresh about six o’clock in the evening, bound “for Narragansett Bay,” papa said, when he was asked where they were now going. Bessie was so thoroughly tired that she was soon glad to nestle her head against her father and go to sleep: a very comfortable sleep it was too, from which she did not wake even when she was carried from the cars to a carriage, and from the carriage into a certain house. Maggie, too, after refusing similar accommodation from Uncle Ruthven, and holding herself very upright, and stretching her eyes very wide open, at last gave in, and accepted the repeated offer of his arm as a pillow.