[CHAPTER V.]
FOR some time Nelly's reading-lessons went on very prosperously. Kitty, though not a very experienced, was a very zealous teacher, and Nelly was extremely anxious to learn. Mrs. Powers herself took a great interest in these lessons, and gave Kitty many hints as to the best way of proceeding, besides now and then hearing a lesson herself; and Nelly, whenever she went down to the shop with her work, carried her spelling and reading book with her, to display her progress to Miss Powell. She had learned to make tatting with great rapidity and precision; and Granny Ryan, reviving the knowledge she had acquired in her childhood, showed Nelly how to make several different patterns,—the shamrock, or clover-leaf, the daisy, and so forth.
Nelly was now always clean and neat, with well-washed hands and face and nicely-brushed hair; and Mrs. Kirkland, finding her both handy and trustworthy, used to employ her in little matters about the store. Sometimes she dusted show-cases, and baskets which were hanging up; sometimes she sorted out worsted from a large box of coloured odds and ends, which ordinarily resembled the box of coloured silks presented by the fairy Disorder in Miss Taylor's Original Poems. Nelly was not in the least aware that she was under close observation at these times; but such was the case. Mrs. Kirkland and Miss Powell had a benevolent design for her, and they were at the same time educating her for the place and trying her fitness for it. Nelly was now earning a good deal of money; and, as she had no occasion to spend it in a new dress, she allowed it to accumulate in Mrs. Kirkland's hands.
Nelly had made up her mind, after some consideration, that her promise to Mr. Lambert obliged her to go to Sunday-school at once, without waiting till she should learn to read. How much her new hat and frock had to do with this decision, I cannot say; but certain it is that she presented herself at the school the very next Sunday, and was placed, at Miss Powell's special desire, in her own class,—Miss Powell herself undertaking to see that she had her lessons.
Fortunately for both Nelly and her teacher, the whole of the intermediate department of the large school learned the same lesson, five verses in the Gospel of St. Matthew every Sunday, to be recited word for word. Nelly was soon able, with Kitty's assistance, to spell out the lessons for herself, and Miss Powell showed her how to learn them easily and perfectly, by committing one verse to memory every day and repeating it many times over, reviewing the verses which went before. Kitty, who had been learning verses and hearing the Bible read ever since she could remember, was astonished at the interest Nelly took in these lessons. Kitty never thought of learning more than her allotted five verses; but Nelly always wanted to read on to the end of the story, however long it might be. Especially was she interested in any thing about heaven. It was a subject on which she was never tired of thinking and talking.
For Nelly, though her condition had considerably improved since we first saw her at her grandmother's gate, was not very happy. She was a child of strong and deep feelings; she had—however she came by it—a natural taste for every thing neat and pretty and graceful, and there was very little in her own home to gratify these tastes. She would have been glad to clean up the house and to put the garden in some kind of order; but granny was very jealous of any interference within doors; and as for the garden, where was the use in trying to plant any thing, so long as Crummie was allowed to run at her own sweet will about the place? In vain Nelly represented to her grandmother the convenience of having lettuce and peas of their own raising, and the advantages which would be derived from planting out the raspberry-shoots Mrs. Powers had offered to give her. Mrs. Ryan thought the peas would want sticks; and where were they to come from? and the cow—poor craythur—would break her heart entirely if she had to be tied up at night.
"Do you think you know more than your granny that brought you up? And where would you have been now, if I hadn't taken care of you? And now you set yourself up to teach me! Sure you're growing proud, and ashamed of old granny, that has worked and slaved for you all your life, because you've got some grand friends all at once."
And then the old woman would break out into a passionate lament over her hard fate and her child's ingratitude; and Nelly, vexed and grieved, would give up the subject for that time, or she would lose her own temper, and scold back again,—which was much worse; for it made granny ten times more unreasonable, besides leaving a sore pain in Nelly's own conscience, which lasted long after granny had regained her good humour.
It was a certain case that granny was becoming more and more irritable all the time. Perhaps she was only jealous of Nelly's new friends; perhaps there was some other cause; but the old woman grew very hard to get on with. Then Nelly disliked her work more and more. She did not so much mind watching Crummie on the common, or driving her farther out in the country, where the grass by the road-sides was fresh and green, and where she could sit on a fence or a stone and work on her tatting. But she hated putting on her old frock and going about gathering swill; and she was always afraid that some of the ladies she saw in Mrs. Kirkland's shop would recognize her. This did actually happen one day, to Nelly's intense mortification. A lady who lived on the Avenue, and to whose house Nelly often went for swill, saw and spoke to her.
"Why, Nelly, is this you? What are you doing here?"