"Mother, you really must not worry about all that to-night. Father told me to go and see Mr. Duncan to-morrow, and perhaps he'll do something for us."
"Mr. Duncan do anything? Why, he's as hard as flint, always grumbling at your father for not getting the last penny out of the tenants; he do anything? Oh, no, no!"
"Well, we don't know how it will be yet. Come, mother, I'm going to make you that cup of tea, and you must lie down while I get it."
Betty makes the tea, and coaxes her mother into taking it, and presently persuades her to go to bed.
It is very late by this time, the house is quiet, and Betty goes to bed herself.
Now, at last, in the silence, she has time to think.
This morning—was it really only this morning that she was so foolishly vexed because her birthday was not remembered? Did she really feel the sweep's visit a big trouble only a few hours ago? How small, how utterly insignificant her troubles have been up to now! And yet she has made so much of them, has felt herself so hardly used!
For a long time she lies awake, turning it all over in her mind. "Father, dear, patient old father is tossing in pain and fever, and his worry is much worse than mine, for he must lie still and think, and I can be up and at work. It is so much harder to bear things when you can do nothing to make them better. Lord, show me what to do; show me how to work for our home—for father's sake."
Somehow, soon after that prayer, Betty falls into a sound sleep, and does not awake until it is morning.
When at length she opens her eyes, it is time to get up. For a moment she lies still enough, not remembering what has happened; then, with a rush, it all comes back to her, and she starts out of bed.