“Surprised, Mary?” asked the rector, with an amused twinkle.
“That a girl out of Pevensel should look so neat and respectable.”
“Can any good thing come out of Nazareth, eh?”
“Yes, father.”
“Egad, many good things do originate from Nazareth, my dear—more, I imagine, than from polite Jerusalem.”
Mary Sugg returned to the parlor, and confessed with some shy courtesy to Bess that the rector himself was in need of a servant. Could Bess cook and milk and mend stockings? Bess’s eyes were fixed searchingly on Miss Sugg’s face for the moment as though probing her sincerity. Contrasts that they were, there was a gentleness and an air of quiet sympathy about the parson’s daughter that appealed instinctively to the child of the woods. She met Mary’s offer in the spirit that prompted it, and thanked her with a tremulous light in her eyes.
“Madam,” she said, with simple stateliness, holding out her hand and making poor Mary look utterly commonplace, “I thank you for your kindness and your trust in me. I will serve you with all my heart.”
There is magic in gratitude, and Mary, blushing shyly, took Bess’s hand and liked the girl unreservedly from that moment.
“My father is a kind man,” she said, a little confusedly; “he is always ready to help those who are in trouble.”
“And I see that you are his daughter, madam.”