The first day's experience of Jessie under the roof of Mrs. Freeman is known to the reader. It was a painful experience, but she bore it in the right spirit. After that, she was careful to confine herself to the part of the house assigned her as a servant and inferior, and never ventured upon the least familiarity with any one. Her duty to the children who were committed to her charge was faithfully performed, and she received, regularly, her wages, according to contract, and there the relation between her and this family ceased. Day after day, week after week, and month after month, did Jessie Hampton, uncheered by an approving smile or friendly word, discharge her duties. But she had within, to sustain her, a consciousness that she was doing right, and a firm trust in an all-wise and merciful Providence.
Mrs. Carlton remained her steady friend, and Jessie spent an evening at her house almost every week, and frequently met there many of her old acquaintances. Of her treatment in the house of Mrs. Freeman she never spoke, and when questioned on the subject avoided giving a direct answer.
Mr. Hartman's struggle proved to be a hard one. Harassed by claims that he could not pay off at once, his credit almost entirely gone, and the capital upon which he was doing business limited to a few hundred dollars, he found it almost impossible to make any headway. In a year from the time Jessie had relieved him from the burden of her support, so far from being encouraged by the result of his efforts, he felt like abandoning all as hopeless. There are always those who are ready to give small credits to a man whom they believe to be honest, even though once unfortunate in business; but for such favours Mr. Hartman could not have kept up thus far. Now the difficulty was to pay the few notes given as they matured.
A note of five hundred dollars was to fall due on the next day, and Mr. Hartman found himself with but a hundred dollars to meet it. The firm from which he had bought the goods for which the note was given had trusted him when others refused credit to the amount of a single dollar, and had it in their power to forward his interests very greatly if he was punctual in his payments. It was the first bill of goods they had sold him, and Hartman could not go to them for assistance in lifting the note, for that would effectually cut off all hope of further credit. He could not borrow, for there was no one to lend him money. There was a time when he could have borrowed thousands on his word; but now he knew that it would be folly to ask for even hundreds.
In a state of deep discouragement, he left his store in the evening and went home. After tea, while sitting alone, Jessie, who came to see him often, tapped at his door.
"Are you not well?" she asked, with much concern, as soon as the smile with which he greeted her faded from his face, and she saw its drooping expression.
"Yes, dear," he replied, trying to arouse himself and appear cheerful; but the effort was in vain.
"Indeed, uncle, you are not well," remarked Jessie, breaking in upon a longer period of silent abstraction into which Mr. Hartman had fallen, after in vain trying to converse cheerfully with his niece.
"I am well enough in body, Jessie; but my mind is a little anxious just now," he replied.
"Isn't your business coming out as well as you expected?" inquired the affectionate girl.