"Suppose, then, that you learn a spelling lesson to-morrow; and I will hear you spell it in the evening. There are few things more important than good spelling."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Nelly, much pleased. "I can learn it while I am doing my tatting, can't I?"
"Oh, yes; very nicely. I wonder, by the way, if you are the little girl Mrs. Kirkland told me of, who makes tatting so neatly and earns so much? Do you work for her?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, Nelly, I am glad to make your acquaintance. You had better begin your spelling lessons with the words of two syllables, and learn two lines. And be sure you call the letters right while you are studying them. Good-night."
When Nelly went to Mrs. Powers's, she found the pan set ready for her; but Kitty was nowhere to be seen. Kitty had had time to become heartily ashamed of the way in which she had treated Nelly. She had told her little brother (who chanced to come in while she was angry about the pitcher) to go and ask Nelly for her slate. When she got it, she would have been very glad to send it back again. But she did not know how. She was not prepared to humble herself before Nelly and say she had been to blame. So she hid herself in her own room, ashamed and miserable, while Nelly poured out the milk, watching for her to go away that she might come down and take care of it. Nelly, however, went out so quietly that Kitty did not hear her; and another Kitty, who was also keeping a sharp look-out, was quicker in her movements than the one up-stairs: so that when Kitty Brown came down she found Kitty Whitecat with her nose and whiskers in the milk-pan. Kitty sprang, and so did Puss; and between them they knocked down the pan, spilt the milk, and broke the dish,—all of which Kitty laid up against Nelly, as if it had been her fault.
The next day the repairs began, and went prosperously on. The windows were mended, the frames put to rights, the door new-hung, the fence straightened up; and both that, the lean-to kitchen and Crummie's shed received a resplendent coat of whitewash. Mr. Vandake found somewhere a door-step with a rail and bench, which had been discarded by some one for a more ambitious veranda; and this was mended up and set before granny's door, where it looked, it must be confessed, rather more as if the house belonged to it, than as if it belonged to the house. Nelly, however, saw no fault to find with it, and looked forward with great delight to the time when it should be warm enough to sit upon the bench and work. A slight fence divided Crummie's portion of the yard from the garden; and Mrs. Caswell promised to give Nelly plenty of flowers to set out the next spring. I am not sure that Mr. Vandake had not received some private directions from Mr. Grayson; but certain it is that no thirty dollars ever effected such an amount of repairs before. Nelly ceased to regret her new shawl, as she saw the altered aspect of the place; and even granny admitted that the money was well laid out.
Meantime, Nelly was going on with her work and her lessons, busy as a little girl could well be. She learned a spelling lesson every day; and soon Mrs. Caswell added a lesson in Colburn's Arithmetic, which Nelly found much easier to comprehend than the one she had first tried. She began to have an understanding of figures, and to handle them easily; and this was soon to be of great use to her.
Kitty Brown watched with great interest for Nelly's lesson the Sunday after their quarrel, expecting, and half hoping, to hear her miss, and be reproved; but she was disappointed. Nelly recited with perfect correctness, and received extra commendation. Kitty would have found it hard to tell why she was displeased at Nelly's success; but displeased she certainly was.
"I sha'n't trouble myself about her any more," said she. "She would never have known any thing, only for me,—the ungrateful little thing. I don't ever mean to speak to her again."