“’Cause Bessie says mamma and Jesus will be glad when I’m good,” Belle answered, laying her cheek against her father’s; “and she said that was the best way to make you happy too, papa. She says when we love um we try to please um. Isn’t that true, papa?”
“Very true, my darling. Bessie is a dear little girl, and I am glad that you remember when she tells you what is right.”
“She does it more than she tells it, papa: that’s why I ’member so much. It makes me feel ’shamed when Maggie and Bessie see I am naughty.”
“I won’t go to Aunt May’s this morning, papa,” she said another day when her father told her to go and be made ready.
“What! stay away from your dear Maggie and Bessie?” said Mr. Powers. “How is that?”
“Daphne is sick, papa: she has such a hegget”—Belle meant headache—“she could hardly dress me this morning, and had to lie right down. If she has to get up again, I’m afraid she will be more worse, so I will stay home to-day.”
But Belle’s voice shook as she proposed this, for it was a great sacrifice for her. Six months since she would not have thought of denying herself any thing for the sake of her old nurse, and her father was both pleased and touched.
“Then papa’s unaccustomed fingers will see what they can do,” he said, unwilling that his little girl should lose her day’s pleasure; and, if Belle were not quite as neatly dressed as usual, no fault was found, and “Aunt Margaret” soon remedied all that was wrong.
But another bit of self-denial came in Belle’s way that day, and that she carried out.
Coming in with two or three bunches of fine hot-house grapes,—the first of the season,—in his hand, Colonel Rush found the children on the piazza, playing “party” with their dolls’ teacups and saucers. Two other little girls, the children of a neighbor, were playing with them. He stopped and gave Maggie a bunch to divide amongst them. They were greatly pleased with this little treat; but Maggie and Bessie were rather surprised to see Belle put hers aside on one of the doll’s plates, as if she did not intend to eat, or even play with them.