"I was pleased to get your letter, Hetty. I am glad you are sorry for what occurred."
"I am sorry," said the little girl looking up frankly. "I am very sorry while I am here. But I might not be so sorry up at the Hall. The sorryness went away when I saw Lucy. Afterwards it came back when Mrs. Kane came in."
"And that is why you want to stay here? Because Mrs. Kane makes you feel good? It is an excellent reason; but why can you not learn to be good at the Hall too? What has Mrs. Kane done to make you good?"
"Oh! she loves me, for one thing," said Hetty; "and then she makes me pray to God. I never heard about God at Mrs. Rushton's; and Miss Davis always told me I made him angry. Mrs. Kane's God is so kind. I would like to make him fond of me."
"You have a strange startling way of saying things, Hetty. You must try and be more like other children. Mrs. Kane's God is mine, and yours, and every one's, and we must all try to please him. But if you like her way of speaking of him you can come here as often as you please and talk to Mrs. Kane."
"Then I must go back to the Hall?" said Hetty.
"I am sorry you look on it as a hardship, Hetty. Mr. Enderby and I think it will be more for your good than staying here."
"I am only afraid of being bad," said Hetty simply.
"Oh! come, you will say your prayers and learn to be a good child," said Mrs. Enderby cheerfully; and then she went away, having settled the matter. She was more than ever convinced that Hetty's was a curious and troublesome nature; but she had not sounded the depths of feeling in the child, nor did she guess how ardently she desired to be good and worthy of love, how painfully she dreaded a relapse into the old state of pride and wilfulness which seemed to shut her out from the sympathies of others.
After Mrs. Enderby was gone, Hetty sat for a long time with her chin in her little hand looking out of the cottage door, and seeing nothing but her own trouble. How was she to try and be like other children? Could she ever learn to be like Phyllis, always cold and well-behaved, and never the least hot about anything; or could she grow quiet and sweet and so easily silenced as Nell? How was she to hinder her tongue from saying out things just in the words that came to her? She wished she could say things differently, for people so seldom seemed to understand what she meant. Tears began to drip down her cheeks as she thought of returning to her corner in the stately Hall, where she felt so chilled and lonely, of sitting no more at the snug homely hearth where there was always a spark of love burning for her.