"Will she come to-morrow?"
"Perhaps she will."
"Uncle True's going to be gone all day to-morrow," said Gerty; "he's going to get in Mr. Eustace's coal. Wouldn't it be a good time?"
"Very," said Mrs. Sullivan. "I'll try and get Kate to come to-morrow."
Kate came. The room was thoroughly cleaned and put in order. Gerty's new clothes were delivered to her own keeping; she was neatly dressed in one suit, the other placed in a little chest found in the pantry, and which accommodated her small wardrobe very well.
It was the result of Mrs. Sullivan's, Kate's, and Gerty's combined labour which astonished True on his return from his work; and the pleasure he manifested made the day a memorable one in Gerty's life, one to be marked in her memory as long as she lived, as being the first in which she had known that happiness—perhaps the highest earth, affords—of feeling that she had been instrumental in giving joy to another. Gerty had entered heart and soul into the work, when she had been allowed. She could say with truth, "We did it—Mrs. Sullivan, Kate, and I." None but a loving heart like Mrs. Sullivan's would have sympathized in the feeling which made Gerty so eager to help. But she did, and allotted to her many little services, which the child felt herself more blessed in being permitted to perform than she would have done at almost any gift bestowed upon her. She led True about to show him how cleverly Mrs. Sullivan had made the most of the room and the furniture; how, by moving the bed into a recess, she had reserved the whole square-area, and made a parlour of it. It was some time before he could be made to believe that half of his property had not been spirited away, so incomprehensible was it to him that so much additional space and comfort could be acquired by a little system. But his astonishment and Gerty's delight reached their climax when she took him into the lumber-closet, now transformed into a snug and comfortable bed-room.
"Well, I declare! Well, I declare!" was all the old man could say. He sat down beside the stove, now polished, and made, as Gerty declared, new, just like Mrs. Sullivan's; warmed his hands, for they were cold with being out in the frosty evening, and then took a general view of his reformed domicile, and of Gerty, who was about to set the table, and toast the bread for supper. Standing on a chair, she was taking down the cups and saucers from among the regular rows of dishes shining in three-cornered cupboard, being deposited on the lower shelf, where she could reach them from the floor, a plate containing some smoothly cut slices of bread, which the thoughtful Mrs. Sullivan had prepared for her. True watched her motions for a minute or two, and then indulged in a short soliloquy. "Mrs. Sullivan's a clever woman, sartain, and they've made my old house here complete, and Gerty's getting to be like the apple of my eye, and I'm as happy a man as——"