“Can’t you do anything for it?”
“I suppose so, but it won’t go down in time for Sunday-school, and who will take my class?”
Hannah groaned. “Who would ever get up in the middle of the night and worry about a Sunday-school class, when they had a toothache? It’s unnormal! Go back to bed, unless there is something I can do for you. Can’t I call your mother?”
187“No, there’s no use bothering her. I know what to do well enough, but I am so worried about the class.”
“O, go along to sleep. I’ll take your old class.”
Hannah was asleep herself before Catherine had finished sighing with grateful relief and returned to her own room.
An hour later, Hannah woke with a start to the consciousness that something unpleasant had happened. Almost immediately that vagueness gave way to irritating clearness. She got up and peeped into Catherine’s room. She was sleeping, but the swollen cheek left no room for hope that the whole episode was a nightmare. Hannah dressed quietly, frowning the while at her unconsidered offer of the early morning.
“I do think this town would be twice as nice if there weren’t any children in it. They spoil everything. I never taught anybody anything in all my life. And I never went to Sunday-school either, except in Germany. She will just have to get some one else,” she fussed. “A promise like that doesn’t count. I was so sleepy I didn’t know what I was saying.”
With unwelcome plainness she recalled the facts that Dorcas and Polly had classes of their own, Bertha and Agnes were out of town, and Dot and Win and Bess belonged to another denomination.
“Why couldn’t she have waited till Alice came? 188 She’s always ready for things like that. O, dear. I suppose I’ll have to try. Catherine would keep a promise herself, if she made it in delirium tremens!”