"Don't think about it at all," mutters Clara.
"That's just it. My Grannie, she keeps her house as clean and tidy as a new pin, and yet always has time for everything. My Grannie says that all work is really beautiful if it is done for God. Did you never hear of the little servant who used to say she swept the floor for God, and cleaned the pots for God, too? God sees everything, you know.
"Then, again, you're sorry for father's accident; but why don't you show you're sorry by doing your work in the way father would like? Untidy rooms and careless, slipshod ways worry him dreadfully. Now, wouldn't it be nice if we could get all the house in apple-pie order, and ourselves into nice, tidy ways, before he comes out of the hospital? What a smile of thanks he would give us all round! Come, isn't that something worth trying for?"
"Hum! Don't see how it's going to be done," mutters Clara, looking round the untidy kitchen hopelessly. "We're just in a muddle everywhere."
"We can't get straight all of a minute, of course. But what I want us to do is to make a beginning. Ah, there's ten o'clock striking! I must go to Mr. Duncan with the books. Now, you will try—won't you, Clara? You'll work for God, and to please father, and to help me; and, Clara," adds Betty, in a hurried whisper, "do run upstairs and put your cap straight, and wash that great black smut from your face—it's right across your nose."
CHAPTER VIII
THE CAPTAIN
Mr. Duncan offers to give Betty a third part of her father's usual earnings. The rent-collecting will occupy three long mornings in the week at least, and an hour or two of every evening must be spent over the books.