“To-morrow!” I gasped.
“Yes,” he returned, in his quick, decided voice; “you and Hannah will have plenty of work to-day. You are looking pale, Miss Fenton; sea air will be good for you as well as Joyce. I do not like people to grow pale in my service.”
“I have been telling Merle,” observed his wife, anxiously, “that she is to have the sole responsibility of our children. Adelaide must not interfere, must she, Alick?”
“Of course not,” with a frown. “My dear Violet, we all know what your sister’s management means; Rolf is a fine little fellow, but she is utterly ruining him. Remember, Miss Fenton, no unwholesome sweets and delicacies for the children; you know our rules. She may stuff her own boy if she likes, but not my children,” and with this he dismissed me, and sat down beside his wife with some open letters in his hand.
I returned to the nursery with a heavy heart. How little we know as we open our eyes on the new day, what that day’s work may bring us! I think one’s waking prayer should be, “Lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies.”
I was utterly cast down and disheartened at the thought of leaving my mistress. The responsibility terrified me. I should be at the tender mercies of strangers, who would not recognise my position. Ah! I had got to the Hill Difficulty at last, and yet surely the confidence reposed in me ought to have made me glad. “I trust you as myself.” Were not those sweet words to hear from my mistress’s lips? Well, I was only a girl. Human nature, and especially girl nature, is subject to hot and cold fits. At one moment we are star-gazing, and the majesty of the universe, with its undeviating laws, seems to lift us out of ourselves with admiration and wonder; and the next hour we are grovelling in the dust, and the grasshopper is a burthen, and we see nothing save the hard stones of the highway and the walls that shut us in on every side. “Lead us in a plain path.” Oh, that is just what we want; a Divine Hand to lift us up and clear the dust from our eyes, and to lead us on as little children are led.
These salutary thoughts checked my nervous fears and restored calmness. I remembered a passage that Aunt Agatha had once read to me—a quotation from a favourite book of hers; I had copied it out for myself.
“Do as the little children do—little children who with one hand hold fast by their father, and with the other gather strawberries or blackberries along the hedges. Do you, while gathering and managing the goods of this world with one hand, with the other always hold fast the hand of your heavenly Father, turning to Him from time to time to see if your actions or occupations are pleasing to Him; but take care, above all things, that you never let go His hand, thinking to gather more, for, should He let you go, you will not be able to take another step without falling.”
Just then Hannah came to me for the day’s orders, and I told her as briefly as possible of the plans for the morrow. To my astonishment, directly I mentioned Netherton, she turned very red, and uttered an exclamation.
“Netherton—we are to go to Netherton—Squire Cheriton’s place! Why, miss, it is not more than a mile and a half from there to Dorlecote and Wheeler’s Farm.”