With a most thankful spirit, Nelly began the black stripe; and most earnestly did she resolve to be more and more careful to do her duty.
"Granny, you were right," said she, when she went home that evening. "The blessing of God does shine on the straight path. I have found that out to-day. I can't tell you how, because Mrs. Kirkland told me not; but you don't know how I thank you for telling me that story the other day."
"If she told you not to tell, you had better not say any thing about it anyway, honey," said granny. "Sometimes a thing slips out unawares, and when it's out it's like the smoke out of the chimney, dear,—it can't be got in again."
"Well, I won't," said Nelly: "only, granny, I do want to say one thing; for it has been on my mind all day. I used to grumble because you did not give me an education; but you did give me an education in one way, and of the best sort. You taught me to be honest, and never to touch the least thing that did not belong to me. I should not be trusted as I am now, only for you. Mrs. Kirkland said to-day she would trust me with any thing in the shop. I feel as though I had been very ungrateful to you, granny; but I do love you."
Nelly's voice faltered, and she could find no farther expression, save by throwing her arms round the old woman's neck and hugging and kissing her in true Irish fashion.
"Sure you was but a child; and one don't expect gray heads on young shoulders," said granny, taking Nelly on her knee, as if she had been still a baby. "And it's true for you, Nelly. Your granny hasn't always done the right thing by you. But I think I have lived in a kind of dream all my life, dear," she continued. "I have always been thinking and thinking of going back to Ireland and being a great lady; but I'm thinking I shall go to a better country first, my dear."
"You don't feel sick, do you, granny?" asked Nelly, anxiously.
"No, dear. I have my health wonderful for an old woman of seventy-four. But yet I am old, you know; and, of course, I have not as long to live as I had forty years ago; and it becomes me to be thinking about the place where I am hoping to go."
"I think it is much pleasanter to think about going to heaven than about going back to Ireland, because that is a thing one can be sure about," said Nelly. "And one never can be sure about any thing in this world, because, somehow, the most likely things are the very ones that never happen."
"And have ye just found that out?" said the old woman, smiling at Nelly's very Irish mode of stating the matter. "That's a discovery was made some years before you were born or thought of, my Lady Eleanor. But it's true, for all that; and a good thing it is to think of. And glad and proud I am to see my Nelly trusted and honoured. So now put away your work a while, and read me another chapter before I go to bed."