“That would not please me, either. I am not so selfish as that. Oh, Bessie, do tell me how I am to conquer this nervous dread of losing you. It is not selfishness, for I do love to have treats; but when you go away I don’t seem to take any pleasure in anything; it is all so flat and disagreeable. Sometimes I lie awake and cry when I think what I should do if you were to die. I know how silly and morbid it is, but how am I to help it?” And here Hatty broke down, and hid her face on Bessie’s shoulder.
CHAPTER VII.
IN THE KENTISH LANES.
Bessie did not make any answer for a minute or two, but her eyes were a little dim as she heard Hatty sob.
“I must not break the bruised reed,” she said to herself. “Hatty’s world is a very little one; she is not strong enough to come out of herself, and take wider views; when she loves people, she loves them somehow in herself; she can’t understand the freedom of an affection that can be happy in the absence of its object. I am not like Hatty; but then our natures are different, and I must not judge her. What can I say that will help her?”
“Can’t you find anything to say to me, Bessie dear?”
“Plenty; but you must wait for it to come. I was just thinking for you—putting myself in your place, and trying to feel as you do.”
“Well!”
“I was getting very low down when you spoke; it was quite creepy among the shadows. ‘So this is how Hatty feels,’ I said to myself, and did not like it at all.”