“I have brought our little maiden to you, ladies, as you desired, and if you will please to tell me how long you wish to keep her, I will send my Jacob up to fetch her away at the proper time,” said the dame as she entered the hall into which the Miss Pemberton’s had come out to meet their young guest.
Miss Pemberton scanned her narrowly with her keen grey eyes before replying.
“Good morning, my dear,” said Miss Mary, “come and shake hands.”
May ran forward and placed her hand trustfully in that of the blind lady. “May I lead you about the garden as I did yesterday, Miss Mary,” she asked, “and tell you of the birds, and butterflies, and flowers I see? I shall like it so much.” Miss Mary smiled and nodded her consent to the proposal. “Thank you, thank you,” exclaimed Maiden May. “You need not send for the child till the evening, Mrs Halliburt,” said Miss Jane, who had been watching May. “We shall not grow tired of her I think, and she, I hope, will be happy here.”
The dame went away in the hopes that Maiden May had made a favourable impression on the ladies. “The elder is a little stiff and won’t win the child’s heart like the blind lady; but she is kind and may be thinks more than her sister,” she said to herself. “She won’t spoil the child or set her up too much—that’s a good thing, or maybe she might not like coming back to us and putting up with our ways, and that would vex Adam sorely.”
The little girl spent a very happy day with the kind ladies. She led Miss Mary as she had proposed about the garden, and was as entertaining to the blind lady as on the previous day, while she gained a considerable amount of information tending to expand her young mind.
Miss Jane commenced giving her the course of instruction she had contemplated, and Maiden May proved herself a willing and apt pupil. When invited to come to dinner, Miss Jane was pleased to see her stand up with her hands before her, ready to repeat the grace which she herself uttered.
“Father always prays before and after meals though he does not say the same words; but I think God does not care about the words so much as what comes out of the heart. Oh, He is very very kind, I always thank Him for what He gives me. If He had not taken care of me, I should have been washed away in the sea with my poor ayah and all the people on board the ship.”
“And you love God my little maiden,” asked Miss Pemberton. “Oh, yes, how could I not when He has given us His dear Son, and with Him all things else which we can want to make us happy.”
“The child has been well taught by the good fish wife,” observed Miss Mary aside to her sister. “She has set us an example which we must be careful to follow.”