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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hetty Gray, by Rosa Mulholland
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Hetty Gray
+       Nobody's Bairn
+
+
+Author: Rosa Mulholland
+
+Release Date: April 4, 2005  [eBook #15538]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HETTY GRAY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+HETTY GRAY
+
+or, Nobody's Bairn
+
+by
+
+ROSA MULHOLLAND (LADY GILBERT)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+       I. FOUR YEARS OLD
+
+      II. UNDER THE HORSES' FEET
+
+     III. ADOPTED
+
+      IV. MRS. KANE IN TROUBLE
+
+       V. A LONELY CHILD
+
+      VI. HETTY AND HER "COUSINS"
+
+     VII. HETTY'S FIRST LESSONS
+
+    VIII. HETTY DESOLATE
+
+      IX. WHAT TO DO WITH HER?
+
+       X. THE NEW HOME
+
+      XI. HETTY TURNS REBEL
+
+     XII. A COTTAGE CHILD AGAIN
+
+    XIII. A TRICK ON THE GOVERNESS
+
+     XIV. HETTY'S CONSTANCY
+
+      XV. THE CHILDREN'S DANCE
+
+     XVI. A TRIAL OF PATIENCE
+
+    XVII. HETTY'S FUTURE IS PLANNED
+
+   XVIII. REINE GAYTHORNE
+
+     XIX. IF SHE WAS DROWNED, HOW CAN SHE BE HETTY?
+
+      XX. HAPPY HETTY
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+FOUR YEARS OLD.
+
+
+In all England there is not a prettier village than Wavertree. It has no
+streets; but the cottages stand about the roads in twos and threes, with
+their red-tiled roofs, and their little gardens, and hedges overrun with
+flowering weeds. Under a great sycamore tree at the foot of a hill
+stands the forge, a cave of fire glowing in the shadows, a favourite
+place for the children to linger on their way to school, watching the
+smith hammering at his burning bars, and hearing him ring his cheery
+chimes on the anvil. Who shall say what mystery surrounds the big smith,
+as he strides about among his fires, to the wide bright eyes that peer
+in at him from under baby brows, or what meanings come out of his
+clinking music to four-year-old or eight-year-old ears?
+
+Little Hetty was only four years old when she stood for five or ten
+minutes of one long summer day looking in at the forge, and watching and
+listening with all the energy that belonged to her. She had a little
+round pink face with large brown eyes as soft as velvet, and wide open
+scarlet lips. Her tiny pink calico frock was clean and neat, and her
+shoes not very much broken, though covered with dust. Altogether Hetty
+had the look of a child who was kindly cared for, though she had neither
+father nor mother in the world.
+
+Two or three great strong horses, gray and bay, with thick manes and
+tails, came clattering up to the door of the forge, a man astride on one
+of them. Hetty knew the horses, which belonged to Wavertree Hall, and
+were accustomed to draw the long carts which brought the felled trees
+out of the woods to the yard at the back of the Hall. Hetty once had
+thought that the trees were going to be planted again in Mrs. Enderby's
+drawing-room, and had asked why the pretty green leaves had all been
+taken off. She was four years old now, however, and she knew that the
+trees were to be chopped up for firewood. She clapped her hands in
+delight as the great creatures with their flowing manes came trotting up
+with their mighty hoofs close to her little toes.
+
+"You little one, run away," cried the man in care of the horses; and
+Hetty stole into the forge and stood nearer to the fire than she had
+ever dared to do before.
+
+"Hallo!" shouted Big Ben the smith; "if this mite hasn't got the courage
+of ten! Be off, you little baggage, if you don't want to have those
+pretty curls o' yours singed away as bare as a goose at Michaelmas! As
+for sparks in your eyes, you sha'n't have 'em, for you don't want 'em.
+Eyes are bright enough to light up a forge for themselves."
+
+"Aye," said the carter, "my missus and I often say she's too pretty a
+one for the likes of us to have the bringing up of on our hands. And
+she's a rare one for havin' her own way, she is. Just bring her out by
+the hand, will you, Ben, while I keep these horses steady till she gets
+away?"
+
+Big Ben led the little maid outside the forge, and said, "Now run away
+and play with the other children"; and then he went back to set about
+the shoeing of John Kane's mighty cart-horses, or rather the cart-horses
+of Mr. Enderby of Wavertree Hall.
+
+Little Hetty, thus expelled, dared not return to the forge, but she
+walked backwards down the road, gazing at the horses as long as she
+could see them. She loved the great handsome brutes, and if she had had
+her will would have been sitting on one of their backs with her arms
+around his neck. Coming to a turn of the road from which a path led on
+to an open down, she blew a farewell kiss to the horses and skipped away
+across the grass among the gold-hearted, moonfaced daisies, and the
+black-eyed poppies in their scarlet hoods.
+
+There were no other children to be seen, but Hetty made herself happy
+without them. A large butterfly fluttered past her, almost brushing her
+cheek, and Hetty threw back her curly head and gazed at its beauty in
+astonishment. It was splendid with scarlet and brown and gold, and
+Hetty, after a pause of delighted surprise, dashed forward with both her
+little fat arms extended to capture it. It slipped through her fingers;
+but just as she was pulling down her baby lips to cry, a flock of white
+and blue butterflies swept across her eyes, and made her laugh again as
+she pursued them in their turn.
+
+At last she stumbled into a damp hollow place where a band of golden
+irises stood among their tall shafts of green like royal ladies
+surrounded by warriors. Hetty caught sight of the yellow wing-like
+petals of the flag-lilies and grasped them with both hands. Alas! they
+were not alive, but pinned to the earth by their strong stems. The
+butterflies were gone, the flowers were not living. The little girl
+plucked the lilies and tried to make them fly, but their heads fell
+heavily to the ground.
+
+A big plough-boy came across the downs, and he said as he passed Hetty,
+
+"What are you picking the heads off the flowers for, you young one?"
+
+"Why won't they fly like the butterflies?" asked Hetty.
+
+"Because they were made to grow."
+
+"Why can't I fly, too?"
+
+"Because you were made to run."
+
+When Hetty went into the school she had a scratch from a briar all
+across her cheek.
+
+"You are quite late, Hetty Gray," said the schoolmistress. "And what
+have you been doing to scratch your face?"
+
+"I was trying to make the flowers fly," said Hetty; and then she was put
+to stand in the corner in disgrace with her face to the wall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+UNDER THE HORSES' FEET.
+
+
+Mrs. Kane's cottage stood on a pretty bend of one of the village roads,
+and belonged to an irregular cluster of little houses with red gables
+and green palings. It was among the poorest dwellings in Wavertree, but
+was neat and clean. The garden was in good order, and a white climbing
+rose grew round the door, that sweet old-fashioned rose with its
+delicious scent which makes the air delightful wherever it blows.
+
+The cottage door stood open, and the afternoon sunlight fell across the
+old red tiles of the kitchen floor. The tiles were a little broken, and
+here and there they were sunk and worn; but they were as clean as hands
+could make them, as Mrs. Kane would have said. A little window at one
+side looked down the garden, and across it was a frilled curtain, and
+on the sill a geranium in full flower. On the other side was the
+fire-place, with chintz frill and curtains, and the grate filled with a
+great bush of green beech-leaves. A table set on the red tiles was
+spread for tea, and by it sat Mrs. Kane and her friend Mrs. Ford
+enjoying a friendly cup together.
+
+"She _is_ late this evening," Mrs. Kane was saying; "but she'll turn up
+all right by and by. If she's wild she's sharp, which is still
+something. She never gets under horses' feet, nor drops into the pond,
+or anything of that sort. If she did those sort of things, being such a
+rover, Mrs. Ford, you see I never should have an easy moment in my
+life."
+
+"I must say it's very good of you to take to do with her," said Mrs.
+Ford, "and she nobody belonging to you. If she was your own child--"
+
+"Well, you see, my own two dears went to heaven with the measles," said
+Mrs. Kane, "and I felt so lonesome without them, that when John walked
+in with the little bundle in his arms that night, I thought he was just
+an angel of light."
+
+"It was on the Long Sands he found her, wasn't it?" asked Mrs. Ford,
+balancing her spoon on the edge of her cup.
+
+"On the Long Sands after the great storm," said Mrs. Kane; "and that's
+just four years ago in May gone by. How a baby ever lived through the
+storm to be washed in by the sea alive always beats me when I think of
+it, it seems so downright unnatural; and yet that's the way that
+Providence ordered it, Mrs. Ford."
+
+"I suppose all her folks were drowned?" said Mrs. Ford.
+
+"Most like they were, for it was a bad wreck, as I've heard," said Mrs.
+Kane. "Leastways, nobody has ever come to claim her, and no questions
+have been asked. Unless it was much for her good I would fain hope that
+nobody ever will claim her now. Wild as she is, I've grown to love that
+little Hetty, so I have. Ah, here she is coming along, as hungry as a
+little pussy for her milk, I'll be bound!"
+
+Hetty came trudging along the garden path, her curls standing up in a
+bush on her head, her little fat fingers stained green with grass, and
+her pinafore, no longer green, filled with moon-daisies. She was singing
+with her baby voice lifted bravely:
+
+"Dust as I am I come to zee--"
+
+"Dust indeed!" cried Mrs. Kane, "_I_ never saw
+such dust. Only look at her shoes that I blacked this morning!"
+
+"Poor dear, practising her singing," said Mrs. Ford. "Well, little lass,
+and what have you been seeing and doing all day long?"
+
+"I saw big Ben poking his fire," answered Hetty after a moment's
+reflection. "He put me out, and then I saw him hurting the horses' feet
+with his hammer. I wanted the horses to come along with me, but they
+shook their heads and stayed where they were. Then I tried to catch the
+butterflies, and they flew right past my eyes. And I thought the yellow
+lilies could fly too, and they wouldn't. Then I pulled their heads
+off--"
+
+"And were you not at school at all?" asked Mrs. Ford. "Well, well,
+Hetty, you are wild. If you saw my little boys going so good to their
+school! What more did you do, Hetty?"
+
+"I went into school, and schoolmistress put me in a corner. Then I drew
+marks with my tears on the wall; and afterwards I said my spelling. And
+I came home and got some daisies; and I saw Charlie Ford standing in the
+pond with his shoes and stockings on."
+
+"Oh my! oh my! well I never!" cried Mrs. Ford, snatching up her bonnet,
+and getting ready to go home in a hurry. "Charley in the pond with his
+shoes and stockings on! It seems, Mrs. Kane, that I've been praising him
+too soon!"
+
+While Mrs. Ford was running down the road after Charley, Mrs. Enderby,
+up at Wavertree Hall, was directing her servants to carry the table for
+tea out upon the lawn under the wide-spreading beech-trees; and her two
+little daughters, Phyllis aged eight and Nell aged seven, were hovering
+about waiting to place baskets of flowers and strawberries on the
+embroidered cloth. Mrs. Rushton, sister-in-law of Mrs. Enderby and aunt
+of the children, was spending the afternoon at the Hall, having come a
+distance of some miles to do so.
+
+Mrs. Enderby was a tall graceful lady, with a pale, gentle, but rather
+cold face; her dress was severely simple and almost colourless; her
+voice was sweet. Mrs. Rushton was unlike her in every respect, low in
+size, plump, smiling, and dressed in the most becoming and elegant
+fashion. Mrs. Enderby spoke slowly and with deliberation; Mrs. Rushton
+kept chattering incessantly.
+
+"Well, Amy," said the former, "I hope you will talk to William about it,
+and perhaps he may induce you to change your mind. Here he is," as a
+gentleman was seen coming across the lawn.
+
+Mrs. Rushton shrugged her shoulders. "My dear Isabel," she said, "I do
+not see what William has to do with it. I am my own mistress, and surely
+old enough to judge for myself."
+
+The two little girls sprang to meet their father, and dragged him by the
+hands up to the tea-table.
+
+"William," said Mrs. Enderby, "I want you to remonstrate with Amy."
+
+"It seems to me I am always remonstrating with Amy," said Mr. Enderby
+smiling; "what wickedness is she meditating now?"
+
+Mrs. Rushton laughed gaily, dipped a fine strawberry into cream and ate
+it. Her laugh was pleasant, and she had a general air of good humour and
+self-complacency about her which some people mistook for exceeding
+amiability.
+
+"Isabel thinks I am going to destruction altogether," said she,
+preparing another strawberry for its bath of cream; "only because I am
+thinking of going abroad with Lady Harriet Beaton. Surely I have a right
+to arrange my own movements and to select my own friends."
+
+Mr. Enderby looked very grave. "No one can deny your right to do as you
+please," he said; "but I hope that on reflection you will not please to
+go abroad with Lady Harriet Beaton."
+
+"Why!"
+
+"Surely you know she is not a desirable companion for you, Amy. I hope
+you have not actually promised to accompany her."
+
+"Well, I think I have, almost. She is very gay and charming, and I
+cannot think why you should object to her. If I were a young girl of
+sixteen, instead of a widow with long experience, you could not make
+more fuss about the matter."
+
+"As your brother I am bound to object to such a scheme," said Mr.
+Enderby.
+
+Mrs. Rushton pouted. "It is all very well for you and Isabel to talk,"
+she said, "you have each other and your children to interest you. If I
+had children--had only one child, I should not care for running about
+the world or making a companion of Lady Harriet."
+
+Mrs. Enderby looked at her sister-in-law sympathetically; but Mr.
+Enderby only smiled.
+
+"My dear Amy," he said, "you know very well that if you had children
+they would be the most neglected little mortals on the face of the
+earth. Ever since I have known you, a good many years now, I have seen
+you fluttering about after one whim or another, and never found you
+contented with anything long. If Phyllis and Nell here were your
+daughters instead of Isabel's, they would be away at school somewhere,
+whilst their mother would be taking her turn upon all the
+merry-go-rounds of the world."
+
+"Thank you, you are very complimentary," said Mrs. Rushton; and then she
+laughed carelessly:
+
+"After all, the merry-go-rounds, as you put it, are much better fun than
+sitting in a nursery or a school-room. But I assure you I am not so
+frivolous as you think; I have been going out distributing tracts lately
+with Mrs. Sourby."
+
+"Indeed, and last winter I know you were attending lectures on cookery,
+and wanted to become a lecturer yourself."
+
+"Yes, and only for something that happened, I forget what, I might now
+be a useful member of society. But chance does so rule one's affairs. At
+present it is Fate's decree that I shall spend the next few months at
+Pontresina."
+
+Mr. Enderby made a gesture as if to say that he would remonstrate no
+more, and went off to play lawn tennis with his little girls. Mrs.
+Rushton rose from her seat, yawned, and declared to Mrs. Enderby that it
+was six o'clock and quite time for her to return towards home, as she
+had a drive of two hours before her.
+
+Shortly afterwards she was rolling along the avenue in her carriage, and
+through the village, and out by one of the roads towards the open
+country.
+
+Now little Hetty Gray ought to have been in her bed by this time, or
+getting ready for it; but she was, as Mrs. Kane told Mrs. Ford, a very
+wild little girl, though sharp; and while Mrs. Kane was busy giving her
+husband his supper Hetty had escaped from the cottage once more, and had
+skipped away from the village to have another little ramble by herself
+before the pretty green woods should begin to darken, and the moon to
+come up behind the trees.
+
+Hetty had filled her lap with dog-roses out of the hedges, and wishing
+to arrange them in a bunch which she could carry in her hand, she sat
+down in the middle of the road and became absorbed in her work.
+
+Near where she sat there was a sharp turning in the road, and Hetty was
+so busy that she did not hear the sound of a carriage coming quite near
+her. Suddenly the horses turned the corner. Hetty saw them and jumped
+up in a fright, but too late to save herself from being hurt. She was
+flung down upon the road, though the coachman pulled up in time to
+prevent the wheels passing over her.
+
+Poor Hetty gave one scream and then nothing more was heard from her. The
+footman got down and looked at her, and then he went and told the lady
+in the carriage that he feared the child was badly hurt.
+
+"Oh dear!" said the lady, "what brought her under the horses' feet? Can
+you not pick her up?"
+
+The footman went back to Hetty and tried to lift her in his arms, but
+she uttered such pitiful screams at being touched that he was obliged to
+lay her down again.
+
+Then the lady, who was Mrs. Rushton, got out and looked at her.
+
+"You must put her in the carriage," she said, "and drive back to the
+village. I suppose she belongs to some of the people there."
+
+"I know her, ma'am," said the footman; "she is Mrs. Kane's little
+girl,--little Hetty Gray."
+
+Mrs. Rushton got into the carriage again and held the child on her lap
+while they were being driven back to the village to Mrs. Kane's cottage
+door. It was quite a new sensation to the whimsical lady of fashion to
+hold a suffering child in her arms, and she was surprised to find that,
+in spite of her first feelings of impatience at being stopped on the
+road, she rather liked it. As Hetty's little fair curly head hung back
+helplessly over her arm, and the round soft cheek, turned so white,
+touched her breast, Mrs. Rushton felt a motherly sensation which she had
+never before known in all her frivolous life.
+
+Mrs. Kane was out at the garden gate looking up and down the road for
+the missing Hetty. When she saw Hetty lifted out of the carriage she
+began to cry.
+
+"Oh my! my!" she sobbed, "I never thought it would come to this with
+her, and she so sharp. Thank you, madam, thank you, I'm sure. She's not
+my own child, but I feel it as much as if she was."
+
+Mrs. Rushton then sent the carriage off for the doctor and went into the
+cottage with Mrs. Kane. The child was laid as gently as possible on a
+poor but clean bed covered with a patchwork quilt of many colours, and
+the lady of fashion sat by her side, bathing the baby forehead with eau
+de Cologne which she happened to have with her. It was all new and
+unexpectedly interesting to Mrs. Rushton. Never had she been received as
+a friend in a cottage home before, the only occasions when she had even
+seen the inside of one were those on which she had accompanied Mrs.
+Sourby on her mission of distributing tracts; and on those occasions she
+had felt that she was not looked on as a friend by the poor who received
+her, but rather as an intruder. It was evident now that good, grieved
+Mrs. Kane took her for an angel as she sat by the little one's bed, and
+it was new and delightful to Mrs. Rushton to be regarded as a
+benefactress by anyone.
+
+The doctor arrived, set the child's arm, which was found to be broken,
+and gave her something to make her fall asleep. Then he charmed Mrs.
+Rushton by complimenting that lady on her goodness of heart.
+
+"Remember, all the expense is to be mine," she said to him, "and I hope
+you will order the little one everything she can possibly require. I
+will come to see her to-morrow, Mrs. Kane, and bring her some flowers
+and fruit."
+
+The pretty green woods which Hetty loved had grown dark, the butterflies
+had flown away to whatever dainty lodging butterflies inhabit during the
+summer nights, the yellow wings of the flag-lilies fluttered unseen in
+the shadows, and the moon had risen high above the tall beech-trees and
+the old church tower. Mrs. Rushton stepped into her carriage once more,
+and was driven rapidly through the quiet village, away towards her own
+luxurious home, feeling more interested and excited than she had felt
+for a long time.
+
+Little Hetty Gray, her scare of fright and pain gone for the time like a
+bad dream, lay sound asleep upon her humble bed, and Mrs. Kane, trimming
+her night-light, paused to listen, with that fascination which many
+people feel at the sound, to the hoarse boom of the old church clock
+calling the hour of midnight, across the chimneys of the village and
+away over the silent solemn woods.
+
+Mrs. Kane felt with a sort of awe that another day had begun, but she
+little knew that with it a strange new leaf had been turned in the story
+of her little Hetty's life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ADOPTED.
+
+
+Mrs. Rushton returned the next day with a basket of ripe peaches and a
+large bouquet of lovely flowers such as Hetty had never seen before. The
+yellow lilies might stand now in peace among their tall flag leaves
+without fearing to have their heads picked off, for Hetty had got
+something newer and more delightful to admire than they. Odorous golden
+roses and pearl-white gardenias scented and beautified the poor little
+room where Hetty lay. Where had they come from, she wondered, and who
+was the pretty lady who sat by her side and kept putting nice-smelling
+things to her nose? At first she was very shy and only looked at her
+with half-closed eyes, but after some time she took courage and spoke to
+her.
+
+"What kind lady are you?" asked Hetty boldly.
+
+"I am a good fairy," said Mrs. Rushton, "and when you are well I am
+going to carry you off to see my house."
+
+"Hetty has got a house," said the little girl complacently. "Have you
+got a house too?"
+
+"A splendid large house, Hetty," said Mrs. Kane. "_You_ never saw such a
+house."
+
+"Is it bigger than the post-office?" said Hetty doubtingly.
+
+"Bigger far."
+
+"Bigger than the forge?"
+
+"Don't be foolish, child, and stop your biggers," said Mrs. Kane; "Mrs.
+Rushton's house is the size of the church and more."
+
+Hetty winked with astonishment, and she lay silent for some time, till
+at last she said:
+
+"And do you sit in the pulpit?"
+
+Mrs. Rushton laughed more than she was accustomed to laugh at Lady
+Harriet Beaton's comic stories. This child's prattle was amusing to her.
+
+"And do you have grave-stones growing round your door?" persisted Hetty.
+
+"There, ma'am!" cried Mrs. Kane, "she'll worry you with questions if you
+give her a bit of encouragement. She'll think of things that'll put you
+wild for an answer, so she will. John and I give her up."
+
+Mrs. Rushton was not at all inclined to give her up, however, for she
+kept coming day after day to visit the little patient. Hetty became fond
+of her pleasant visitor, and watched eagerly for her arrival in the
+long afternoons when the flies buzzed so noisily in the small cottage
+window-panes, and the child found it hard to lie still and hear the
+voices of the village children shouting and laughing at their play in
+the distance. As soon as Mrs. Rushton's bright eyes were seen in the
+doorway, and her gay dress fluttering across the threshold, Hetty would
+stretch out her one little hand in welcome to the delightful visitor,
+and laugh to see all the pretty presents that were quickly strewn around
+her on the bed. After spending an afternoon with the child, Mrs. Rushton
+often went on to Wavertree Hall and finished the evening there with her
+brother's family. Mr. and Mrs. Enderby were greatly astonished to find
+how completely their lively sister had interested herself in the village
+foundling.
+
+"Take care you do not spoil her," said Mr. Enderby.
+
+Mrs. Rushton shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I can never please you," she said. "One would suppose I had found a
+harmless amusement this time at least, and yet you do not approve."
+
+"I do approve," said her brother, "up to a certain point. I only warn
+you not to go too far and make the child unhappy by over-petting her. In
+a few weeks hence you will have forgotten her existence, and then the
+little thing will be disappointed."
+
+"But I have no intention of forgetting her in a few weeks," said Mrs.
+Rushton indignantly.
+
+"No; you have no intention--" said Mr. Enderby.
+
+"You certainly are a most unsympathetic person," said Mrs. Rushton; and
+she went away feeling herself much ill-used, and firmly believing
+herself to be the only kind-hearted member of her family.
+
+"After all, William," said Mrs. Enderby to her husband, "you ought not
+to be too hard upon Amy, for you see she has given up talking of going
+abroad with Lady Harriet."
+
+"True; I have noticed that. Yet I fear she will not relinquish one folly
+without falling into another."
+
+"Her present whim is at all events an amiable one," said Mrs. Enderby
+gently. "Let us hope no harm may come of it.'
+
+"I should think it all most natural and right if any other woman than
+Amy were in question," said Mr. Enderby; "but one never knows to what
+extravagant lengths she will go."
+
+The warnings of her brother had the effect of making Mrs. Rushton still
+more eager in her attendance on the child, and a few days after she had
+been "lectured" by him, as she put it to herself, she astonished good
+Mrs. Kane by saying:
+
+"I think she is quite fit to be moved now, Mrs. Kane, and the doctor
+says so. I am going to take her home with me for a week for change of
+air."
+
+"Laws, ma'am, you never mean it!"
+
+"But I do mean it. I am going to fatten her up and finish her cure."
+
+"Well, ma'am, I'm sure you are the kindest of the kind. To think of you
+troubling yourself and putting yourself out, and all for our little
+Hetty."
+
+"That is my affair," said Mrs. Rushton laughing; "I don't think a mite
+like that will disturb my household very much. Just you pack her up, and
+I will carry her off with me to-morrow at three."
+
+The next day the lady carried off her prize, greatly delighted to think
+of how shocked her brother would be when he heard of her new "folly." As
+soon as she had introduced Hetty to all her dogs, and cats, and rabbits,
+Mrs. Rushton went to her desk and wrote a note to her sister-in-law
+inviting the entire Wavertree family to spend a day at Amber Hill, which
+was the name of her charming dwelling-place.
+
+When, on a certain morning, therefore, the Wavertree carriage stopped at
+the foot of the wide flight of steps, flanked by urns of blooming
+flowers, which led up to Mrs. Rushton's great hall door, the mistress of
+Amber Hill was seen descending the stone stair leading a little child by
+the hand. This was Hetty, dressed in a white frock of lace and muslin,
+and decked with rose-coloured ribbons.
+
+"Isn't she a little beauty?" said Mrs. Rushton, smiling mischievously at
+her grave brother and sister-in-law. "Look up, my darling, and show your
+pretty brown velvet eyes. Did you ever see such a tint in human cheeks,
+Isabel, or such a crop of curling hair?"
+
+"Do you really mean that this is the village child, Amy?" asked her
+brother.
+
+"Yes, little Hetty is here!" said Amy with a gleeful laugh; "but then,
+William, Lady Harriet is gone. If I had asked you to meet her to-day
+instead of little Miss Gray from Wavertree, I wonder what you would have
+done to find a more disagreeable expression of countenance."
+
+"Do you wish us to understand that you have adopted this 'nobody's
+child,' Amy?" said Mr. Enderby, looking more and more troubled.
+
+"Well, to tell you the truth, I did not mean that quite," said Mrs.
+Rushton; "but now that you suggest it--"
+
+"_I_ suggest it!" cried Mr. Enderby.
+
+"How horrified you look! But all the same you have suggested it, and I
+think it is a capital idea."
+
+"Do not come to any hasty conclusion, I implore you, Amy. Think over it
+well. Consider the child's interests more than your own momentary
+self-indulgence!"
+
+Mrs. Rushton coloured with displeasure.
+
+"I see you are determined to be as disagreeable as usual," she said
+angrily. "As if the monkey could fail to be benefited by my patronage!
+Pray, will she not be better in my drawing-room than getting under
+horses' feet about the Wavertree roads, or losing herself in the
+Wavertree woods?"
+
+"Frankly, I think not," said Mr. Enderby stiffly.
+
+Mrs. Rushton's eyes flashed, and she did her brother the injustice of
+thinking that he feared her adoption of little Hetty would in some way
+interfere with the worldly interests of his own children. She was not
+accustomed to seek far for other people's meanings and motives, and
+generally seized on the first which presented itself to her mind. She
+knew that she only wanted to amuse herself, and had no intention of
+wronging her nieces and nephew by playing with this charming babe. Why,
+then, should William take such fancies in his head? In this flash of
+temper she instantly decided on keeping little Hetty always with her.
+Was there any reason in the world why she should not do just as she
+pleased? Hetty should certainly stay with her and be as her own child
+from this day forth.
+
+"What have _you_ to say about my adopting little Hetty?" she said,
+turning to her sister-in-law with a slightly defiant and wholly
+triumphant smile.
+
+"I shall say nothing," said Mrs. Enderby, "until I see how you treat
+her. I trust it may turn out for the best."
+
+Thus, all in a moment, and merely because Mrs. Rushton would not be
+contradicted, was little Hetty's future in this world decided. Before
+her brother had spoken, the lady of Amber Hill had had no intention of
+keeping Hetty for more than a week in her house. And now she felt bound
+(by the laws of human perversity) to take her and bring her up as her
+own child.
+
+In the meantime Mrs. Enderby's three children and Hetty Gray were
+standing by, gazing at one another. The little Enderbys, Mark, Phyllis,
+and Nell, had taken in the whole conversation, and understood perfectly,
+with the quick perception of children, the strangeness of the situation,
+and their own peculiar position with regard to Mrs. Kane's little girl
+from Wavertree.
+
+The little Enderbys were thinking how very odd it was that the little
+girl whom they had often seen, as they walked with their nurse or drove
+past in the carriage with their mother, playing on the roads in a soiled
+pinafore, should be now presented to them as a new cousin. Phyllis, the
+eldest, was much displeased, for pride was her ruling fault. Mark and
+Nell were charmed with the transformation in Hetty and very much
+disposed to accept her as a playfellow, though they remembered all the
+time that she was not their equal.
+
+Hetty, being only four years old, was supremely unconscious of all that
+was being said, and meant, and thought over her curly head. She gazed at
+the three other children, and, repelled by Phyllis's cold gaze, turned
+to Mark and Nell, and stretched out a little fat hand to each of them.
+
+"Come and see the beautiful flowers!" she said gleefully; "you never saw
+such lovely ones!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MRS. KANE IN TROUBLE.
+
+
+"Now, tell me all about it, for as I am going to be her mother in future
+I must know everything that concerns my child."
+
+Mrs. Rushton was talking to Mrs. Kane, having come to the cottage to
+announce her intention of adopting Hetty. Mrs. Kane was crying bitterly.
+
+"You'll excuse me, ma'am. I would not stand in the way of my darling's
+good fortune, not for ever so, I'm sure. And yet it's hard to give her
+up."
+
+"I should not have thought it could make much difference to you. I
+believe she was generally running about the roads when not at school."
+
+"Well, you see, ma'am, that is true; but at night and in the mornings
+she would kneel on my lap to say her prayers, and put her little soft
+arms round my neck. And those are the times I'll mostly miss her."
+
+Mrs. Rushton coughed slightly. She herself liked the sight of Hetty's
+pretty face, and was amused by her prattle; but she was not a woman to
+think much about the feel of a child's arms around her neck. Mrs. Kane,
+perceiving that she was not understood, sprang up from her seat and went
+to fetch a parcel from an inner room.
+
+"This is the little shift she wore when I first set eyes on her. It is
+the only rag she brought with her; though not much of a rag, I'm bound
+to say; for so pretty an article of the kind I never saw," said the good
+woman, spreading out on the table an infant's garment of the finest
+cambric embroidered delicately round the neck and sleeves.
+
+In the corner was a richly wrought monogram of the initials H.G.
+
+"And that's why we called her Hetty Gray," said Mrs. Kane. "John and I
+made up the name to suit the letters. If ever her friends turn up
+they'll know the difference, but in the meantime we had to have
+something to call her by."
+
+"Why, this is most interesting!" said Mrs. Rushton, examining the
+monogram; "she probably belonged to people of position. It is quite
+satisfactory that she should prove to be a gentlewoman by birth."
+
+"And that is why I feel bound to give her up, ma'am," said Mrs. Kane,
+wiping her overflowing eyes. "I've always put it before me that some day
+or other her folks would come wanting her, and I've said to myself that
+it would be terrible if she had grown up in the meantime with no better
+education than if she was born a village lass. And yet what better could
+I have done for her than I could have done for a daughter of my own if I
+had had one?"
+
+"Just so," said Mrs. Rushton; "and now you may be sure that she will be
+educated, trained, dressed, and everything else, just as if she had been
+in her mother's house. As for her own people coming for her, I am not
+sure that I shall give her up if they do. Not unless I have grown tired
+of her in the meantime."
+
+"Tired of her!" echoed Mrs. Kane, looking at her visitor in great
+surprise; "surely, madam, you do not think you will get tired of our
+little Hetty!"
+
+"I hope not, my good woman; but even if I do you cannot complain, as in
+that case I shall give her back to you; that is, if it happens before
+her friends come to fetch her. Unless you are pretending to grieve now,
+you cannot be sorry at the prospect of having her again."
+
+"That's true," said the poor woman in a puzzled tone, and she still
+looked wistfully at the handsome visitor sitting before her. She did not
+know how to express herself, and she was afraid of offending the lady
+who was going to be Hetty's mother; yet she felt eager to make some
+remonstrance against the injustice of the proceeding which Mrs. Rushton
+spoke of as within the bounds of possibility. She believed in her heart
+that a great wrong would be done if the child, having been educated and
+accustomed to luxury for years, were to be carelessly thrown back into a
+life of lowly poverty. However, the trouble that was in her heart could
+not find its way through her lips, and she tried to think that Mrs.
+Rushton spoke only in jest.
+
+"It is altogether like a romance," that lady was saying as she folded up
+the baby garment and put it away in a pretty scented satchel which she
+wore at her side. "I have not met with anything so interesting for
+years, and I promise myself a great deal of pleasure in the matter."
+
+"May Hetty come to see me sometimes?" asked Mrs. Kane, humbly curtseying
+her good-bye, when her visitor was seated in her pony phaeton and
+gathering up the reins for flight.
+
+"Oh, certainly, as often as you please," answered Mrs. Rushton gaily,
+and touching the ponies with her whip she was soon out of sight; while
+poor Mrs. Kane retreated into her cottage to have a good motherly cry
+over the tiny broken shoes and the little washed-out faded frocks which
+were now all that remained to her of her foster-daughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A LONELY CHILD.
+
+
+Mrs. Rushton having adopted Hetty, set about extracting the utmost
+amount of amusement possible from the presence of the child in her home.
+She soon grew anxious to get away from her brother's "unpleasantly
+sensible remarks," and Isabel's gentle excuses for her conduct, which
+annoyed her even more, as they always suggested motives for her actions
+which were far beyond her ken, and seemed far-fetched, over-strained,
+and absurd. So she took the child to London, where she introduced her
+to her friends as her latest plaything.
+
+Hetty had frocks of all the colours of the rainbow, and learned to make
+saucy speeches which entertained Mrs. Rushton's visitors.
+
+She sat beside her new mamma as she drove in her victoria in the park;
+and on Mrs. Rushton's "at home" days was noticed and petted by
+fashionable ladies and gentlemen, her beauty praised openly to her face,
+her pretty clothes remarked upon, and her childish prattle laughed at
+and applauded as the wittiest talk in the world.
+
+Certainly there were many days when Hetty's presence was wearisome and
+intolerable to her benefactress, and then she was banished to a large
+gloomy room at the top of the London house, and left to the tender
+mercies of a maid, who did not at all forget that she was only Mrs.
+Kane's little girl from the village of Wavertree, and treated her
+accordingly. She was often left alone for hours, amusing herself as best
+she could, crying when she felt very lonely, or leaning far out of the
+window to feel nearer to the people in the street. The consequence of
+all this was to spoil the child's naturally sweet temper, to teach her
+to crave for excitement, and to suffer keenly, when, after a full feast
+of pleasure, she was suddenly snubbed, scolded, deserted, and forgotten.
+She began to hate the sight of the bare silent nursery upstairs, where
+there were no pretty pictures to bear her company, no pleasant little
+adornments, no diversions such as a mother places in the room where her
+darlings pass many of their baby hours. It was a motherless, blank,
+nursery, where the only nurse was the maid, who came and went, and
+looked upon Hetty as a nuisance; an extra trouble for which she had not
+been prepared when she engaged to live with Mrs. Rushton.
+
+"Sit down there and behave yourself properly, if you can, till I come
+back," she would say, and seat Hetty roughly in a chair and go away and
+leave her there, shutting the door. At first Hetty used to weep
+dolefully, and sometimes cried herself to sleep; but after a time she
+became used to her lonely life, and only thought of how she could amuse
+herself during her imprisonment. She counted the carriages passing the
+window till she was tired, and watched the little children playing in
+the garden of the square beyond; but at last she would get bolder,
+sometimes, and venture out of her nursery to take a peep at the other
+rooms of the house. One day she made her way down to Mrs. Rushton's
+bed-room; that lady had gone out and the servants were all downstairs.
+Hetty contrived to pull out several drawers and played with ribbons and
+trinkets. At last she opened a case in which was her foster-mother's
+watch, and as this ticking bit of gold was like a living companion,
+Hetty pounced upon it at once.
+
+She played all sorts of tricks with the watch, dressed it up in a towel
+and called it a baby; and making up her mind that baby wanted a bath,
+popped the watch into a basin of water and set about washing it
+thoroughly.
+
+Just as she was working away with great energy the door opened and Mrs.
+Rushton came in. Seeing what the child was doing she flew at her,
+snatched the watch from her hands, and slapped her violently on the arms
+and neck. Hetty screamed, beat Mrs. Rushton on the face with both her
+little palms, and then was whirled away shrieking into the hands of the
+negligent maid, who shook her roughly as she carried her off to the
+miscalled "nursery."
+
+The little girl, who had never been instructed or talked to sensibly by
+any one, was quite unconscious of the mischief she had done; and only
+felt that big people were hateful to-day, as she lay kicking and
+screaming on the floor upstairs.
+
+The end of it all was, however, that, upon reflection, Mrs. Rushton
+found she did not care so much after all about the destruction of her
+watch, and that the whole occurrence would make a capital story to tell
+to her friends; and so she sent for Hetty, who was then making a dismal
+play for herself in the twilight with two chairs turned upside down and
+a pinafore hung from one to another for a curtain. The child was seized
+by Grant, the maid, dressed in one of her prettiest costumes, and taken
+down to the drawing-room to Mrs. Rushton, who had quite recovered her
+temper and forgotten both the beating she had given Hetty and the
+beating Hetty had given her. The culprit was overwhelmed with kisses,
+and praises of her pretty eyes; and soon found herself the centre of a
+brilliant little crowd who were listening with smiles to the story of
+Hetty's ill-treatment of the watch.
+
+Each year Mrs. Rushton went abroad for amusement and Hetty was taken
+with her, and in foreign hotels was even more shown about, flattered and
+snubbed, petted and neglected, than she had been when at home in London.
+Everything that could be done was done to make her vain, wilful,
+ill-tempered; and the little creature came to know that she might have
+anything she pleased if only she could make Mrs. Rushton laugh.
+
+Four or five years passed in this way, during which time Mrs. Rushton
+had very little intercourse with her brother's family at Wavertree. Her
+country house had been shut up and her time had been spent between
+London, Brighton, and fashionable resorts on the Continent. In the
+meantime the education which she had promised Mrs. Kane should be given
+to her nursling had not been even begun. Mrs. Rushton had had no leisure
+to think of it. She looked upon Hetty as still only a babe, a marmoset
+born to amuse her own hours of ennui. In her brother's occasional
+letters he sometimes devoted a line to Hetty. "I hope you are not
+spoiling the little girl," he would add as a postscript; or, "I hope the
+child is learning something besides monkey-tricks." These insinuations
+always annoyed Mrs. Rushton, and she never condescended to answer them.
+The suggestion that she had incurred a great responsibility by adopting
+Hetty was highly disagreeable to her.
+
+It is hard to say how long this state of things might have gone on had
+not Mrs. Rushton's health become delicate. She suddenly found herself
+unable to enjoy the gay life which was so much to her natural taste. The
+doctors recommended her a quiet sojourn in her native air, and warned
+her that she ought to live near friends who felt a real interest in her.
+
+Of what these hints might mean Mrs Rushton did not choose to think, but
+physical weakness made her long for the rest of her own country home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HETTY AND HER "COUSINS"
+
+
+One cool fresh evening in October Mrs. Rushton, Hetty, Grant the maid,
+and an old man-servant who followed his mistress everywhere, arrived at
+the railway-station near Wavertree, and were driven along the old
+familiar country road with the soft purpled woods on one side, and the
+green plains and distant view of the sea on the other. They arrived at
+Amber Hill just as lights began to spring up in the long narrow windows
+of the comfortable old gray house, lights more near and bright than the
+stars burning dimly above the ancient cedar-trees in the avenue.
+
+Hetty, dressed in a costly pelisse trimmed with fur, leaned forward,
+looking eagerly for the first glimpse of her new home. The child had now
+only faint recollections of Wavertree, and of her life with Mrs. Kane in
+the village, and except for Grant's ill-natured remarks from time to
+time she would have forgotten them altogether and imagined herself to be
+Mrs. Rushton's niece, as that lady called her when speaking of her to
+strangers. Hetty hated Grant, who always took a delight in lowering her
+pride, for by this time, it must be owned, pride had become Hetty's
+besetting sin.
+
+Mrs. Rushton had perceived Grant's disposition to snub and annoy the
+child, and with her usual determination to uphold and justify her own
+conduct and disappoint those who disapproved of her views, she had put
+down the maid's impertinence with a high hand, and had grown more and
+more careful of late to protect Hetty's dignity before the servants.
+
+"I hope Miss Gray's room is as nice as I desired you to make it," she
+said to the housekeeper who was welcoming her in the hall. "I hope you
+have engaged a maid from the village to attend on her. I require all
+Grant's attentions now myself," she added wearily, falling into a chair
+in a state of exhaustion. "Hetty, my love, give me a kiss, and go and
+have a pretty frock put on for dinner."
+
+Polly, the new maid, had already unpacked the little girl's trunks and
+was waiting in her room to dress her in white muslin and lace and
+arrange her soft dark curls in a charming wreath round her head. Hetty's
+room was an exquisite little nest draped in pale blue chintz covered
+with roses, and with fantastic little brackets here and there bearing
+pretty statuettes and baskets of flowers. The housekeeper had not indeed
+neglected Mrs. Rushton's instructions with regard to the decoration of
+this apartment.
+
+"My, miss, but you have grown a fine tall girl!" said Polly admiringly;
+"and won't Mrs. Kane be glad to see you again? I suppose you will be
+going to see her to-morrow?"
+
+"I am not sure," said Hetty; "I don't remember Mrs. Kane."
+
+"Don't you, miss? Then you ought to, I am sure, for it was she that took
+care of you before Mrs. Rushton had you."
+
+"Yes, I believe so," said Hetty frowning, for she dreaded that Polly was
+going to make a practice of taunting her with being a foundling, just as
+Grant had always done.
+
+"And you ought to be very thankful to her," persisted Polly, "although
+you are such a grand young lady now."
+
+"Please to mind your own business," said Hetty proudly; "you were
+engaged by Mrs. Rushton to dress me and not to give me lectures."
+
+Polly was astonished and aggrieved. She did not know how Hetty had been
+goaded on the subject of her past life by Grant, and had fancied that as
+she had only a child to deal with she could say anything she chose quite
+freely. But though Hetty was only nine, her experiences of the world had
+made her old beyond her years. Polly only thought her a hard-hearted,
+haughty little wretch, too proud to be grateful to those who had been
+good to her.
+
+"Far be it from me to think of lecturing you, Miss Hetty," she said;
+"but mind, I tell you, pride always gets a fall."
+
+"Be silent!" cried Hetty, stamping her small foot imperiously; "if Mrs.
+Rushton knew of your impertinence she would send you away to-night."
+
+It was thus that poor Hetty already began to make enemies, while much
+requiring friends.
+
+Next morning Mrs. Rushton and Hetty drove over to Wavertree to spend a
+few days at the Hall, and on the way the lady stopped at Mrs. Kane's
+door in the village, and bade Hetty alight and go in to pay a visit to
+her old protectress. With Grant's taunts rankling in her memory and
+Polly's reproaches fresh in her mind, Hetty got out of the carriage
+reluctantly and went up to the door with a slow step.
+
+Mrs. Kane was busy over a tub in her little wash-house, and came out
+into the kitchen on hearing some one at the door. She wore a print
+short-gown and petticoat, and a poky sun-bonnet; and her bare arms were
+reeking with soap-suds. Hetty shrank from her a little, and could not
+realize that she had ever belonged to a person with such an appearance
+as this.
+
+Poor Mrs. Kane looked at her young visitor with a stare of wonder, and
+could never have guessed it was Hetty had she not espied Mrs. Rushton's
+face through the open doorway, nodding pleasantly at her from the
+carriage.
+
+"Why, little miss, you're never my little Hetty?" cried the good woman,
+wiping her hands in her apron.
+
+"My name is Hetty Gray," said the little girl, holding up her pretty
+head adorned with a handsome hat and feathers.
+
+"And don't you remember me, my darling?" said Mrs. Kane, extending her
+arms; "me that used to nurse you and take care of you like my own! Oh,
+don't go to say you forget all about your poor old mammy!"
+
+Hetty hung her head. "I don't remember you at all," she said in a low
+trembling voice. Her pride was stung to the quick at the thought that
+she had belonged to this vulgar person.
+
+"Well, well! you were only a baby, to be sure, when you were taken away
+from me. But oh, my dear, I loved you like my own that went to heaven,
+so I did. And my John, he loved you too. Come in here till I show you
+the bed you used to sleep in; and always you would be happier if you had
+a jugful of flowers on the window-sill to look at, falling asleep and
+coming awake again in the morning. To think of it being full five years
+ago, my pretty; and you turned into an elegant young lady in the time!"
+
+"Did I really ever live here?" asked Hetty; "really ever sleep in that
+bed?"
+
+"That you did; and slept well and were happy," said Mrs. Kane, beginning
+to feel hurt at the child's coldness. "Come now, have you never a kiss
+to give to the poor old mammy that nursed you?"
+
+Hetty held up her round sweet face, as fair and fresh as a damask rose,
+to be kissed, and submitted to Mrs. Kane's caresses rather from
+consciousness that she ought to do so, than from any warmth of gratitude
+in her own heart. So far from being grateful to the homely sun-burned
+woman who hugged her, she felt a sort of resentment towards her for
+finding her on the sea-shore and making a cottage child of her. It ought
+to have been Mrs. Rushton who found her, and perhaps she might have done
+so if Mrs. Kane or her husband had not been in such a hurry to take her
+in. Then Grant could not have taunted her with being a village
+foundling, and nobody could have declared she was not intended to be a
+lady.
+
+After her one embrace Mrs. Kane wiped her eyes and led the child out of
+the cottage to the carriage door.
+
+"Ah, Mrs. Rushton!" she said, "this is your Hetty now and not mine any
+more. What does a fine young lady like this want to know of a poor old
+mammy like me? I gave her to you, body and soul, five years ago, and may
+the good God grant that I did right! My little Hetty, that loved the big
+moon-daisies and the field-lilies like her life, is as dead as my other
+children who are in heaven. It lies in your hands, ma'am, to make good
+or bad out of this one."
+
+"You are a curious woman, Mrs. Kane. I thought you would have been
+delighted to see what a little queen I have made of her."
+
+"Queens require kingdoms, ma'am, and I make free to wish that your
+little lady may sit safe on her throne. And after that I can only hope
+that she has more heart for you than for me."
+
+"Come, come, Mrs. Kane! you must not expect memory from a baby. Hetty
+will soon renew her acquaintance with you, and you and she will be
+excellent friends."
+
+But Mrs. Kane was not slow to read the expression of Hetty's large
+dark-fringed eyes, which, with all the frankness of childhood, betrayed
+their owner's thoughts; and she knew that Hetty would find no pleasure
+in learning to recall the inglorious circumstances of her infancy.
+
+Hetty had still less recollection of the Enderby family than of Mrs.
+Kane, but she felt very much more willing to be introduced to its
+members than to the cottage woman. Looking upon herself as Mrs.
+Rushton's only child, she considered the Wavertree children as her
+cousins and their father and mother as her uncle and aunt. Mrs. Rushton
+had always talked to her of them in such a way as to lead her to regard
+them in this light. Occasionally a strange little laugh or a few
+sarcastic words from Mrs. Rushton had grated on the child's ear in the
+midst of her foster-mother's pleasantly expressed anticipations of
+Hetty's future intercourse with her own relations; and the little girl
+had, on such occasions, felt a chill of vague fear, and a momentary pang
+of anxiety as to the reception she might possibly meet with from these
+people, none of whom had ever been found by a poor labouring man alone
+on a wild sea-shore, or had lived with a humble woman in a cottage. That
+the "disgrace" of such a past clung round herself, Grant's disagreeable
+eyes would never allow her to forget. Such were poor Hetty's disordered
+ideas with regard to herself and her little world, when Mrs. Rushton's
+carriage drew up that day before the door of Wavertree Hall.
+
+Mrs. Enderby was seated at her embroidery in the drawing-room beside her
+small elegant tea-table, and looked the very ideal of an English
+gentlewoman in her silver-gray silk and delicate lace ruffles, and with
+her fair, almost colourless hair twisted in neat shining braids round
+the back of her head. With her own faint sweet smile she welcomed her
+sister-in-law and inquired kindly for her health; and then she turned to
+Hetty, who stood gazing steadily in her face, utterly unconscious of her
+own look of anxious inquiry.
+
+Mrs. Rushton had taken pains to make the most of Hetty's uncommon beauty
+on this occasion, determined to take her friends by surprise and force
+them into an acknowledgment of the superiority of her own taste in
+adopting such a child. Hetty was dressed in a dark crimson velvet frock,
+trimmed with rich old yellow lace, which enhanced the warmth and
+richness of her complexion, and gave a reflected glow to her dark and
+deep-fringed eyes. A crop of crisp short curls of a dusky chestnut
+colour was discovered when her hat was removed. No ungenerous prejudice
+prevented Mrs. Enderby from acknowledging at the first glance that Hetty
+had a most charming countenance.
+
+"And this is Hetty! how she has grown!" said Mrs. Enderby, taking the
+child's little hand between her own and looking at her in a friendly
+manner. With a swift pain, however, Hetty remarked that she did not kiss
+her; but she was not aware that Mrs. Enderby, though a kind, was not a
+demonstrative woman, and that kisses were rarely bestowed by her on
+anyone. If Hetty had put up her little face for a caress, Mrs. Enderby
+would have been very well pleased to lay her own cool cheek against the
+child's scarlet lips; but Hetty's was one of those natures that desire
+tokens of love and are yet too proud to seek for them. She flushed to
+her hair, therefore, with mortification as Mrs. Enderby dropped her hand
+and turned away once more to her sister-in-law.
+
+"How tired you are! you look quite faint. Allow me to take your bonnet;
+and do lie down on this couch while I make you a cup of tea. Hetty must
+amuse herself with a piece of cake till my little girls come in from
+their walk. I have got such a nice governess for them, Amy. Mark, you
+know, is gone to Eton."
+
+The ladies continued to converse, and Hetty sat forgotten for the
+moment, eating her cake. She ate it very slowly, anxious to make it last
+as long as possible, for she felt that when it was finished she should
+not know what to do with herself. When even the crumbs were gone she
+folded her hands and counted the flowers on the wall-paper, and
+discovered among them a grinning face which certainly had been no
+acquaintance of the designer's, but had started suddenly out of the
+pattern merely to make cruel fun of Hetty's uneasiness.
+
+At last, after some time which seemed to the little girl quite a year at
+least, Mrs. Enderby rang the bell and asked if the young ladies had come
+in from walking. The servant said they were just going to tea in the
+school-room, and Mrs Enderby turned to Hetty, saying:
+
+"Go, my dear, with Peter, and he will show you the school-room. Tell
+Phyllis and Nell that I sent you to play with them."
+
+Hetty followed the servant; but as she went across the hall and up the
+staircase she felt with a swelling heart that had she been the real
+cousin of these children, and not an "upstart" (Grant's favourite word),
+they would perhaps have been sent for to the drawing-room to be
+presented to her.
+
+Accustomed as she was to be alternately petted and snubbed, she had
+acquired the habit of watching the movements of her elders with
+suspicion, and now concluded that because no fuss was made about her she
+must therefore be despised. A hard proud spirit entered into her on the
+moment, and she resolved that though she had been humble in her
+demeanour towards Mrs. Enderby she would hold her head high with girls
+who were not very much older than herself.
+
+Peter was a young footman who had been brought up in the village and
+trained by the butler at the Hall, and who consequently knew all about
+Hetty's history. He did not intend to do more than just show the little
+girl which was the school-room door, and was amused and surprised when
+the child said to him with great dignity,
+
+"Please announce Miss Gray."
+
+Peter hid his smile, and throwing open the door very wide he pronounced
+her name, as she desired, in an unusually loud tone of voice.
+
+Miss Davis, the governess, had just raised the tea-pot in her hand to
+fill the cups, and her two pupils had each a thick piece of bread and
+butter in hand, when the door was flung open as described and Hetty in
+all her magnificence appeared on the threshold.
+
+"My mamma has brought me to see you," said Hetty boldly, her chin very
+high, "and Mrs. Enderby sent me here to you"; and she remarked as she
+spoke that the Enderby girls wore plain holland dresses with little
+aprons and narrow tuckers, no style or elegance whatever about their
+attire.
+
+Miss Davis looked in surprise at the young stranger, not knowing her
+story, and thinking her a very handsome, but haughty looking little
+girl, while Phyllis and Nell put down their bread and butter on their
+plates, and rose slowly from their seats.
+
+"How do you do?" they said, each just touching her hand, and then the
+three girls stood looking at one another.
+
+The words "my mamma" had already annoyed Phyllis, who was one of those
+persons who even from childhood cherish an extraordinary degree of quiet
+pride in their good birth. She was willing that Hetty should be treated
+with kindness, but had often told herself that she would never be
+persuaded to look upon her as her own cousin. Nell only thought of how
+pretty their new playfellow was, and how nice it would be to have her
+sometimes with them.
+
+"I am very glad you have come," she said, looking at Hetty with
+welcoming eyes.
+
+"Nell, you ought not to speak before your elder sister," said Miss
+Davis, who, though an excellent lady, was rather prim in her ways and
+ideas.
+
+"I hope you are quite well," said Phyllis politely; "will you take some
+tea?"
+
+"I have just had some," said Hetty, "thank you. Do you never have tea
+with your mamma?"
+
+"Oh, no," said the girls, with a smile of surprise.
+
+"Little girls never do," said Miss Davis emphatically.
+
+"I do always," said Hetty; she might have added, "except when she
+forgets all about me," but she did not think of that now.
+
+"I did not know you had any mamma," said Phyllis coldly, not exactly
+meaning to be cruel, but feeling that Hetty was pretentious, and
+therefore vulgar, and that she ought to be kept down.
+
+"How odd that you should not know your own aunt," said Hetty, a warm
+crimson rising in her cheeks, and her eyes kindling.
+
+"My aunt never had a child," said Phyllis quietly.
+
+"Not till she got Hetty," broke in Nell. "Phyllis, how can you be so
+unkind?"
+
+"My dear Nell, I am not unkind, I only meant to correct Miss Gray's
+mistake."
+
+"You had better go into the drawing-room and correct Mrs. Rushton's
+mistakes," said Hetty angrily. "It is by her desire that I call her my
+mother."
+
+By this time Miss Davis knew who Hetty was, as she had heard something
+about Mrs. Rushton's having adopted a village child.
+
+"My dears," she said, "don't let us be unkind to each other. Come, we
+must have our tea, and Miss Gray will be social and join us, even
+though she has had some before." And she handed a cup to the little
+visitor.
+
+"Now, Hetty," continued Miss Davis, "I suppose I may call you Hetty,
+instead of Miss Gray, as you are only a little girl?"
+
+"Yes," said Hetty slowly, half liking Miss Davis, but feeling afraid she
+was laughing at her.
+
+Tea was finished almost in silence, not all Miss Davis's efforts making
+Hetty and Phyllis feel at ease with each other. Nell, being rather in
+awe of her elder sister, of whose general propriety of conduct and good
+sense she had a high opinion, was not very successful in her attempts at
+conversation. When the meal was over Miss Davis proposed a walk in the
+garden before study time.
+
+"Can you play lawn tennis?" asked Nell as they walked towards the
+tennis-ground.
+
+"No, I never play at anything," said Hetty sadly, "When not with--_my
+mamma_," she said with a flash of the eyes at seeing Phyllis looking at
+her, "I have always been alone."
+
+Miss Davis glanced at the child with pity, but Hetty, catching her eye,
+would not bear to be pitied.
+
+"It is much pleasanter to be with grown people in the drawing-room," she
+said. "I should not like at all to live as you do."
+
+"Do you always wear such splendid frocks?" asked Phyllis, examining her
+from head to foot with critical eyes.
+
+"Yes," said Hetty. "I have much finer ones than this; I am always
+dressed like a lady. How can you bear to be such a sight in that ugly
+linen thing?"
+
+"My dear, simple clothes are more becoming to children," said Miss
+Davis, while Phyllis only curled her lip. "If you lived more among those
+of your own age," continued the governess, "as I hope you will
+henceforth do, you would find that little girls are much happier and
+more free to amuse themselves when dressed suitably to their age. You
+shall see how we enjoy ourselves at tennis, as we could not do in
+dresses as rich as yours."
+
+Miss Davis and her pupils began to play tennis, and Hetty tried to join;
+but her dress was too warm and too tight to allow of her making much
+exertion, and so she was obliged to stand by and watch the game. Seeing
+the great enjoyment of the players, Hetty began to feel the spirit of
+the game, and remembered how she had often longed to be one of the happy
+children whom she had seen at play in other scenes than this. However,
+her belief that Phyllis was unfriendly towards her prevented her
+acknowledging what she felt. Had only Nell and Miss Davis been present
+she would have begged the loan of a holland blouse and joined in the
+game with all her heart. But Phyllis had a freezing effect upon her.
+
+When the game was over they went indoors and Hetty was shown the pretty
+room prepared for her. Polly had already unpacked her things, and on the
+bed were laid the handsome gifts which Mrs. Rushton had bought for Hetty
+to present to "her cousins."
+
+Hetty was now glad to see these presents which she had for a time
+forgotten, and thought she had now a good opportunity for making friends
+with the two girls. She was really pleased to give pleasure to Nell,
+whom she liked, and was not sorry that Phyllis would be obliged to
+receive something from her hands.
+
+The presents were both beautiful and both useful. One was a desk, the
+case delicately inlaid, and the interior perfectly fitted up. The other
+was an exquisitely carved and furnished work-box.
+
+"Oh, give the desk to Phyllis; she is so much more clever than I am, and
+writes so well. And I am fond of work. Oh, you are a dear to give me
+such a charming present," said Nell affectionately, examining the
+beautiful work-box with sparkling eyes.
+
+Hetty was delighted.
+
+"I chose them myself," she said with some pride; and then she took the
+desk in her arms and asked Nell to show her the way to Phyllis's room.
+
+"It is down at the end of this passage. I will show you. And you must
+not mind Phyllis if she does not go into raptures like me. She is always
+so well-behaved, and takes everything so quietly."
+
+Phyllis looked greatly surprised, and not quite pleased, when, having
+heard a knock at her door and said "Come in," she saw Hetty invade her
+room. Her first thought was, "This foundling girl is going to be forward
+and troublesome"; and Hetty was not slow to read her glance.
+
+"I have brought you a present," she said, in quite a different tone from
+that in which she had made her little speech to Nell.
+
+Phyllis took the desk slowly, and looked at it as if she wished it had
+not been offered.
+
+"It is very handsome," she said, "and my aunt was very good to think of
+it. Please give her my best thanks."
+
+And then Phyllis deposited the present on a table, and turned away and
+began to change her shoes.
+
+Nell looked at Hetty, but could not see the expression of her face; for
+she had turned as quickly as Phyllis and was already vanishing through
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+HETTY'S FIRST LESSONS.
+
+
+Hetty's bed-room being over the school-room, she was wakened the next
+morning by somebody practising on the piano, the sound from which
+ascended through the floor.
+
+"How well they play, and how early they rise!" thought Hetty. "I wonder
+whether it is Nell or Phyllis who is at the piano? Oh, dear! I do not
+know even a note."
+
+She longed to ask Polly at what hour the Miss Enderbys had got up, and
+which of them was practising on the piano, but as she had begun by
+snubbing Polly she could not now descend from her dignity so far as to
+ask her questions. Polly on her side was always silent when attending on
+Miss Gray, and never ventured upon the least freedom with the haughty
+little foundling.
+
+When Hetty descended to the breakfast-room she found only Mr. and Mrs.
+Enderby at the table. Mrs. Rushton was still in her room, and was having
+her breakfast there.
+
+"This is little Hetty," said Mrs. Enderby, presenting her to her
+husband.
+
+Mr. Enderby put down his paper and looked at Hetty gravely and
+critically, Hetty thought pityingly.
+
+"How do you do, my dear?" he said, patting her shoulder. "I see you
+have not been accustomed to early hours."
+
+Hetty hung her head and sat down at the table. Mrs. Enderby supplied her
+wants and then went on reading her letters; and Hetty ate in silence,
+wondering why she was not called on to talk and amuse these people as
+she had been accustomed to amuse Mrs. Rushton's fashionable friends.
+This quiet wise-looking lady and gentleman seemed to look on her with
+quite different eyes from those with which the rest of the world
+regarded her. They neither snubbed nor petted her, only seemed satisfied
+to allow her to be comfortable beside them.
+
+Presently she plucked up courage to ask:
+
+"Are Phyllis and Nell not coming to breakfast?"
+
+Mrs. Enderby smiled.
+
+"No, my dear, they never breakfast here. They breakfasted an hour ago in
+the school-room. They are busy at their studies at present."
+
+"Are they always busy at studies?" asked Hetty.
+
+"A great part of the day they are."
+
+"As all little girls ought to be who wish to be educated women some
+day," said Mr. Enderby, looking over the edge of his newspaper.
+
+"Your education has hardly begun yet I fear," said Mrs. Enderby.
+
+"Mrs. Rushton"--something withheld Hetty from saying "my mamma" before
+Mr. and Mrs. Enderby--"always says it is time enough for that," said
+Hetty.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Enderby exchanged glances, and Mr. Enderby shifted in his
+seat and shook the newspaper impatiently. Mrs. Enderby said:
+
+"What would you think of joining my girls at their lessons while you
+stay here? I fear that if you do not you will find yourself very
+lonely."
+
+"I am often very lonely," said Hetty simply; and again her host and
+hostess looked at each other.
+
+"Well, which do you prefer?" said the latter; "to be very lonely going
+about the house and gardens by yourself, or to spend your time usefully
+with the other children in the school-room?"
+
+"I would rather be with the girls, if they would like to have me," said
+Hetty after a few moments' reflection. "But I think Phyllis would rather
+I stayed away."
+
+"Oh, I think not," said Mrs. Enderby; "Phyllis never makes a fuss about
+anything, but I will answer for her that she will welcome you."
+
+"I think she does not like me," said Hetty, looking steadily at her
+hostess with large serious eyes.
+
+"Take care you do not dislike her," said Mr. Enderby, with a slight look
+of displeasure. "In this house we do not indulge such fancies."
+
+"My dear, you must not think that because our manners here in the
+country may be quieter and perhaps less warm than those of some of the
+people you have lived with abroad, our hearts are therefore cold. Come,
+then, if you have finished breakfast, I will take you myself into the
+school-room."
+
+Half pleased and half unwilling Hetty suffered herself to be led away,
+and her heart beat fast as she crossed the school-room threshold. Miss
+Davis sat at the end of the table with an open exercise book before her,
+and a severely businesslike look upon her face. Phyllis and Nell bent
+over their books at either side of the same table. Maps hung on the
+walls and books lay about everywhere. Hetty instantly, and for the first
+time in her life, felt keenly that she was a dunce.
+
+"Miss Davis, I have brought you another pupil," said Mrs. Enderby; "I am
+sure you will not mind the trouble of having one more than usual for a
+little while. I think Hetty will be happier for having something to do."
+
+"I shall be very pleased if she will join us," said Miss Davis; and then
+Mrs. Enderby left the room, and Hetty was asked to take a seat at the
+foot of the table.
+
+"What have you been learning, my dear?" asked Miss Davis.
+
+"Nothing," said Hetty; "I can read a little; but that is all."
+
+Phyllis and Nell had not spoken to her, and had looked at her only with
+sidelong glances. This was because it was their study hour and speaking
+was not allowed; but Hetty thought it was because they were not glad to
+see her coming to join them, and she therefore felt all the more
+careless about trying to make the best of herself. If nobody cared about
+her, what did it matter whether she was a dunce or not? So she said
+boldly that she had been learning nothing; and then the two Enderby
+girls lifted up their heads and stared at her in sheer amazement.
+
+Hetty's face grew crimson, and her pride arose within her.
+
+"After all," she said, "it is much better fun to play and amuse yourself
+all day than to sit poring over books. Study does not make people
+prettier or pleasanter."
+
+This last sentence was an echo from one of Mrs. Rushton's silly
+speeches. When people would ask her about Hetty's education, she was
+wont to declare that the child was prettier and pleasanter without it.
+
+Phyllis, listening, merely curled her lip, and bent lower in silence
+over her book. Nell remained looking at Hetty with a wondering
+expression in her eyes. Miss Davis drew herself up and looked much
+displeased.
+
+"I hope you are doing yourself great injustice," she said; "I cannot
+believe you really mean what you say. Study not make people prettier or
+pleasanter! I scarcely believe that my ears have not deceived me."
+
+"It does not make you prettier or pleasanter," said Hetty persistently.
+"You were much nicer yesterday when you were playing and running about.
+Your face is not the same at all now."
+
+Phyllis opened her eyes wide and turned them on Miss Davis, as if to
+ask, "Is not this too much?" Nell, on the contrary, began to smile as
+though she thought Hetty's impudence capital fun; and this encouraged
+Hetty, who had been taught to love to amuse people at any cost. Miss
+Davis coloured with surprise and annoyance.
+
+"It is of no consequence, my dear, how we look when we are doing our
+duty," she said, controlling herself.
+
+"Then I hope I shall never do my duty," said Hetty coolly; "nobody loves
+people who do not look gay."
+
+Phyllis turned to Miss Davis and said, "Will you not send her away now?
+Mother never meant us to be interrupted like this."
+
+"Patience, my dear!" said Miss Davis; "Hetty is perhaps giving us the
+worst side of her character only to startle us. I am sure there is a
+better side somewhere. Come over here to me, Hetty, and let me hear you
+read."
+
+Hetty obeyed, and took the book Miss Davis placed in her hand. Holding
+herself very erect and looking very serious she began, after a glance
+over the paragraph that had been marked for her:--
+
+"Leonora walked on her head, a little higher than usual."
+
+"My dear!" interrupted Miss Davis hastily; and Nell vainly tried to
+smother a burst of laughter.
+
+"That is what is printed here," said Hetty gravely, but the corners of
+her mouth twitched. Miss Davis did not notice this as she took the book
+and prepared to examine the text so startlingly given forth; but Phyllis
+and Nell saw at once that Hetty was making fun.
+
+"Ah!" said Miss Davis, "it is your punctuation that is at fault. The
+sentence runs: 'Leonora walked on, her head a little higher than usual.'
+You see one little comma makes all the difference in the world."
+
+"I wondered how she could manage to walk on her head," said Hetty in the
+most serious manner; "and why, if she did manage it, it should make her
+higher. She would be the same length in any case, would she not, Miss
+Davis?"
+
+Nell laughed again, and Phyllis looked more and more contemptuous. Miss
+Davis said, "Read on please!" rather severely, at the same time giving
+Nell a glance of warning.
+
+Hetty read on, making deliberately the most laughable blunders, at some
+of which Miss Davis herself had to smile. Even Phyllis had to give way
+on one occasion, and in the midst of a chorus of laughter Hetty stood
+making a piteous face, pretending not to know what they were laughing
+at.
+
+"I told you I could read only a little," she said, but at the same time
+she gave Nell a knowing glance which Phyllis caught.
+
+"She could read better if she pleased. She is only amusing herself,"
+said Phyllis to Miss Davis.
+
+"I hope not, my dear," said the governess; "do not be uncharitable.
+Well, Hetty, you may put aside your book for to-day. I hope to improve
+you before your visit is over. Do you know anything of geography? Come,
+I will give you an easy question. Where is England situated on the map?"
+
+"In the middle of the Red Sea," said Hetty briskly.
+
+"My dear! why do you suppose so?"
+
+"I see it up there on the map," said Hetty; "the sea is marked in red
+all round it."
+
+Nell tittered again. Phyllis put her fingers in her ears, determined to
+hear no more of Hetty's absurdities.
+
+"You make a great mistake," said Miss Davis, and spreading a map before
+Hetty, the governess gave her a lesson on the position of the Red Sea
+and the relative position of England.
+
+"Have you learned anything at all of numbers?"
+
+"I can count on my fingers," said Hetty; "I add up the fives and I can
+reckon up to a hundred that way."
+
+"You must learn a better way of counting than that. Have you never
+learned the multiplication table?"
+
+"My mamma's tables are all ebony or marble," said Hetty, putting on a
+bewildered air, "but I will count them up if you like. There are six in
+the drawing-room," she continued, holding up all the fingers of her left
+hand, and the thumb of the right.
+
+"You ridiculous child! you misunderstand me quite. The multiplication
+table is an arrangement of numbers. I will give it to you to study. In
+the meantime, come, how many do three threes make when they are added
+together?"
+
+"I don't know anything about threes," said Hetty; "I only know about
+fives."
+
+"I think I must give you up for to-day," said Miss Davis in despair.
+"Phyllis is waiting with her French exercise. Can you read French at
+all, Hetty?"
+
+"I can talk French," said Hetty; "but I don't want to read it; 'tis
+quite bad enough to have to read English, I think. Talking is so much
+pleasanter than reading."
+
+"You can talk it, can you? Let me hear," and Miss Davis addressed a
+question to her in French.
+
+In answer to it Hetty poured forth a perfect flood of French, spoken
+with a pretty accent and grammatically correct. In truth she spoke like
+a little Frenchwoman, and completely surprised her listeners. She had
+been asked some question about walking in the Champs Elysees and now
+gave a vivid description of the scene there on a fine morning, the
+people who frequented it, their dress, their manners, their
+conversation.
+
+Miss Davis put down the multiplication table which she had been turning
+over and stared at the little Frenchwoman chattering and gesticulating
+before her.
+
+"There, my dear," she said presently, "that will do; I see you can make
+use of your tongue. Take this book now and study quietly for half an
+hour."
+
+Hetty felt that she had had her little triumph at last. Neither Phyllis
+nor Nell could speak French like that. She took the table-book
+obediently and sat down with it, while Phyllis made an effort to get
+over the shock of surprise given her by Hetty's clever exhibition, and
+proceeded to attend to Miss Davis's correction of her French exercise.
+
+That afternoon Hetty was dressed in a holland frock of Nell's, which,
+though Nell was a year older, was not too large for her, and joined
+heartily in a game of lawn tennis. Her little success of the morning,
+when she had surprised her companions and their governess by her
+cleverness at French, had raised her spirits, and she enjoyed herself as
+she had never done in her life before, feeling that she could afford to
+do without Phyllis' good opinion, and taking more and more pleasure in
+showing how little she cared to have it.
+
+After this the days that remained of her visit passed pleasantly enough.
+Hetty contrived to turn her lessons into a sort of burlesque, and to
+impose a good deal on Miss Davis, who was not a humorous, but indeed a
+most matter-of-fact person. Every day Phyllis grew more and more
+disgusted with their visitor, who interrupted the even course of their
+studies and "made fools," as she considered, of Miss Davis and Nell. She
+thought Hetty's pretentiousness became greater and greater as her first
+slight shyness wore away and she grew perfectly familiar with every one
+in the house. Phyllis was sufficiently generous to refrain from
+complaining of Hetty to her mother or father, but she privately found
+fault with Nell for encouraging her too much.
+
+"You laugh at her so absurdly that she grows more impudent every day,"
+she said; "she could not dare to give herself such airs only for you."
+
+"But, Phyllis dear, I can't help laughing at her, and indeed I think you
+make her proud by being so hard upon her; she is not so proud with me."
+
+"She is ridiculous," said Phyllis; "such pretension in a girl of her age
+is utterly absurd. Besides, it is so vulgar. Well-born people are not
+always trying to force their importance on you as she does; if I did not
+try to keep her down a little she would be quite unbearable."
+
+"Perhaps if you did not try to keep her down so much she would not set
+herself up so much," persisted Nell.
+
+"I am older and wiser than you," said Phyllis coldly.
+
+"Yes, I know you are," said Nell regretfully.
+
+"And I ought to be a better judge of people's conduct. I am not going
+to complain of her to father or mother; but as she will be coming here
+again, I suppose, we ought to try to manage her a little ourselves."
+
+Nell did not dare to say any more to Phyllis, but ran away as soon as
+she could get an opportunity, to play with Hetty and laugh admiringly at
+all her droll remarks.
+
+One more triumph Hetty enjoyed before her visit to Wavertree came to an
+end. On a certain evening there was a dinner-party at the Hall, and some
+one who had been expected to sing and amuse the company failed to
+appear. After dinner Mrs. Rushton fancied that the party had grown very
+dull, and a brilliant idea for entertaining the guests occurred to her.
+She left the drawing-room and went upstairs to where the little girls
+were preparing for bed.
+
+"Come, Hetty," she said, "I want you to make yourself agreeable. Every
+one is going to sleep down-stairs and carriages will not arrive till
+eleven. I have rung for Polly to dress you. Phyllis and Nell can come
+down also if they please."
+
+The Enderby girls concluded from this speech that their mother had sent
+for them, and in a short time Mrs. Rushton returned to the drawing-room,
+accompanied by the three children.
+
+Mrs. Enderby looked exceedingly surprised and not quite pleased, but
+Mrs. Rushton said,
+
+"I have provided some amusement for your people. Hetty will make them
+laugh."
+
+Hetty was flushed and trembling with excitement, and at a signal from
+her adopted mother she stepped into the middle of the room and began her
+entertainment; Mrs. Rushton having walked about among the guests
+beforehand, telling them that the child was going to give them some
+sketches of character, the result of her own observations.
+
+Hetty began with a conversation between a mincing and lackadaisical
+young lady and a bouncing one who talked noisily; and she changed her
+attitudes, her accent, the expressions of her face in such droll ways,
+and altogether contrasted the two characters so well, that a round of
+applause and laughter greeted and encouraged her. Then followed a
+ridiculous scene between a cross old lady and an amiable old gentleman
+in a hotel; and so on. Every odd character Hetty had ever met was
+reproduced for the amusement of the company.
+
+Most of the guests laughed heartily and lavished praises on Hetty's
+talent and beauty. Only a few looked shocked, and shook their heads,
+saying it was sad to see a child so precocious and cynical.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Enderby, though disliking the exhibition and thinking it
+very bad for the little girl, were obliged to laugh with the rest, and
+Mrs. Rushton was delighted and triumphant. Nell laughed more than any
+one and clapped her hands wildly, but Phyllis looked on all the time
+with a disdainful smile.
+
+"My girls are up too late," said Mrs. Enderby, as she bade them good
+night.
+
+"Why did you send for us, then, mother?" said Phyllis.
+
+"I did not, my dear, it was quite your aunt's doing. She wished to amuse
+you, I believe."
+
+"Then I wish I had known," said Phyllis, "I would rather have gone to
+bed. I did not want to see that ridiculous performance."
+
+"Hetty took some trouble to make us laugh. And if she has not been very
+wisely brought up we must not blame her too much for that."
+
+"I do not like her; I wish she would go away," said Phyllis with quiet
+determination.
+
+"She is going to-morrow," said Mrs. Enderby.
+
+"She is not a lady, mother, and I am quite tired of her restless ways,"
+persisted Phyllis. "I hope she will never come back here."
+
+Mrs. Enderby in her heart echoed this hope, but she controlled her
+feeling against Hetty and said:
+
+"I fear your aunt is not the sort of person to understand the bringing
+up of a girl; but remember, Phyllis, that I rely on you to help me to be
+of service to this poor child. Go to bed now, my daughter, and be wise,
+as you usually are."
+
+Phyllis looked troubled, and thought over her mother's words as she lay
+in bed. But hers was not one of those natures that relent easily. She
+tried to satisfy her conscience by assuring herself that she wished no
+ill to Hetty, but quite the reverse. "Only she is different from us,"
+she reflected, "and she ought to keep away with the people who suit her.
+I hope aunt Amy will not bring her here again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HETTY DESOLATE.
+
+
+Mrs. Rushton and Hetty departed. Phyllis was satisfied, and everything
+went on as usual at Wavertree Hall. No one was sorry to lose the
+visitors, except Nell, who was secretly rather fond of Hetty. She was
+not a very brave child, and was much influenced by the opinion of
+others, especially of those whom she loved and admired; so, though there
+was a soft corner in her heart for Hetty, she was a little ashamed of
+the fact, seeing that none of the rest of the family shared her feeling.
+With Phyllis especially she was careful to be silent about Hetty, having
+a high opinion of her sister's good sense, and being greatly afraid of
+her contempt. And so it came that after a few days had passed Hetty's
+name was mentioned no more in the house.
+
+Meantime Hetty at Amber Hill was enjoying her life more than she had
+ever enjoyed it before. She had her own pony, and went out to ride as
+often as, and at any hour she pleased. Half-a-dozen dogs and as many
+cats belonged to her, and they all loved her. Almost her entire time was
+spent out of doors, for Mrs. Rushton was too great an invalid now to
+care for much of her company. Grant was almost always in attendance on
+her mistress, and so had very little opportunity for interference with
+Hetty. Polly was easily kept in order, and the housekeeper always took
+the child's part if any of the other servants annoyed or neglected her.
+
+This wild uncontrolled life, spent chiefly in the open air, wandering
+through the woods, running races with the dogs, or galloping up hill and
+down hill with them all flying after the pony's heels, suited Hetty
+exactly. She thought the world delightful because she was allowed to
+live a healthy active life, and nobody thwarted her. When Mrs. Rushton
+sent for her to the drawing-room or to her bed-room Hetty would steal in
+quietly, and, bringing a story-book with her, would sit down at her
+adopted mother's feet, and remain buried in her book till notice was
+given her that it was time for her to depart. In this way she gave very
+little trouble, and Mrs. Rushton was more than ever convinced that she
+had made an excellent choice in adopting Hetty, and that she was the
+most satisfactory child in the world.
+
+One day Hetty had come in from her ride, and was sitting in her own room
+with her story-book waiting for the usual evening summons from Mrs.
+Rushton. The days were now very short, and the little girl's head was
+close to the window-pane as she tried to read. The door opened and she
+started up, shutting the book and preparing to go down-stairs; but there
+was something unusual about Polly's look and manner as she came into the
+room.
+
+"Mrs. Rushton is taken very ill," she said, "and the doctor is sent for.
+So you will please come down and have your tea in the drawing-room by
+yourself, Miss Hetty."
+
+"Is she more ill than usual? Much more?" asked Hetty. "The doctor was
+here this morning."
+
+"She's as ill as can be," said Polly, "and all of a sudden. But you
+can't do her any good. And you'd better come down to your tea."
+
+Hetty followed Polly without saying more, though she felt too anxious to
+care about her tea. She was greatly frightened, yet hardly knew why, as
+Mrs. Rushton was often ill, and the doctor was often sent for. There was
+a general impression in the household that the mistress sometimes made a
+great fuss about nothing, fainted, and thought she was going to die, and
+in a few hours was as well as usual. But no one in the house felt as
+anxious about her as Hetty. During the pleasant weeks that had lately
+passed over her head Hetty had been more drawn to her benefactress than
+she had ever been before. No longer snubbed and neglected in strange
+uncomfortable places, she had, in becoming more happy, also become
+more loving. She knew that she owed all the enjoyments of her present
+life to Mrs. Rushton, and if she was not allowed to be much in the
+company of her adopted mother she thought it was not because she was
+forgotten, but because Mrs. Rushton was too ill to see her. She believed
+herself really very greatly beloved by her benefactress, and had begun
+to love her very much in return. Seeing her lying on her couch, quiet
+and gentle, making no cruel remarks and laughing no cynical laughs,
+Hetty had constructed a sort of ideal mother out of the invalid, and
+endowed her with every lovable and admirable quality. This comfortable
+little dream had added much to the child's happiness in her life of
+late; and now she felt a wild alarm at the thought of the increased
+illness of her protectress.
+
+The doctor came and was shut up in the sick-room, and after some time
+Grant came out and spoke to the housekeeper, and a messenger was sent
+off on horseback to Wavertree Hall.
+
+When Grant came back to Mrs. Rushton's door Hetty was there with her
+face against the panel.
+
+"Oh, Grant, do tell me what is the matter!" she whispered.
+
+"Illness is the matter," said Grant. "There! we don't want children in
+the way at such times. Go up to your bed, miss. You'll be better there
+than here."
+
+"I can't go to bed till I know if she is better," said Hetty. "Why have
+you sent a message to Wavertree?"
+
+But Grant pursed up her lips and would say no more, and Hetty saw her
+pass into Mrs. Rushton's room and close the door.
+
+The child crept back to the drawing-room, where no lamps had been
+lighted and there was only a little firelight to make the darkness and
+emptiness of the large room more noticeable. She knelt down on the
+hearth-rug and buried her face in the seat of Mrs. Rushton's favourite
+arm-chair. The dearest of all her dear dogs, Scamp, came and laid his
+black muzzle beside her ear, as if he knew the whole case and wanted to
+mourn with her. Two hours passed; Hetty listened intently for every
+sound, and wondered impatiently why Mr. and Mrs. Enderby did not arrive.
+She got up and carefully placed some lumps of coal on the fire, making
+no noise lest some one should come and order her off to bed. She was
+resolved to stay there all night rather than go to bed without learning
+something more.
+
+At last a sound of wheels was heard, and Hetty went and peeped out of
+the drawing-room door and saw Mr. and Mrs. Enderby taking off their
+wraps in the hall. Their faces were very solemn and they spoke in
+whispers. She saw them go upstairs, and though longing to follow them,
+did not dare. Then she retreated back into the drawing-room and buried
+her face once more in the depths of the chair.
+
+In this position, with Scamp's rough head close to hers, she cried
+herself to sleep. The wintry dawn was just beginning to show faintly in
+the room when she was awakened by the sound of voices near her. Chilled
+and stiff she gathered herself up and rose to her feet; and Scamp also
+got up and shook himself. Then Hetty saw Mr. and Mrs. Enderby standing
+in earnest conversation at the window.
+
+They started when they saw her as if she had been a ghost, and Mrs.
+Enderby exclaimed in a low voice:
+
+"The child! I had quite forgotten her!"
+
+"Yes, there will be trouble here," muttered Mr. Enderby; while Hetty
+came forward, her face pale and stained with crying, her dress
+disordered, and her curly hair wild and disarranged. She looked so
+altered that they scarcely knew her.
+
+"How is she? Oh, Mrs. Enderby, say she is better," cried Hetty,
+swallowing a sob.
+
+"My dear child," said Mrs. Enderby, "how have you come to be forgotten
+here, have you not been in bed all night?"
+
+"I stayed here," said Hetty, "I wanted to know; will you not tell me how
+she is?"
+
+"My child, she is well, I hope, though not as you would wish to see her.
+It has pleased God to take her away from you."
+
+"Do you mean that she is dead?"
+
+"Yes, my poor Hetty, I am grieved to tell you it is so."
+
+Hetty uttered a sharp cry and turned her back on her friends standing
+in the window. The gesture was an unmistakable one, and touched the
+husband and wife. It seemed to say so plainly that she expected nothing
+from them.
+
+She retreated into the furthest corner of the room and flung herself on
+the floor, and Scamp, hanging his head and wagging his tail, followed
+her mournfully, and lay down as close to her as he could.
+
+"Leave her alone awhile," said Mr. Enderby, for his wife had made a
+movement as if she would follow her; "she is a strange child, and we
+will give her time to take in the fact of her loss. You must not be
+hurried into making rash promises through pity; all this brings a great
+change to the girl, and it is better she should feel it from the first."
+
+The truth was Mrs. Rushton had been dead when her brother and
+sister-in-law arrived. A sudden attack of fainting had resulted in
+death. This abrupt termination of her illness was not quite unexpected
+by herself or her friends, as it was known she had disease of the heart,
+and the doctors had given warning that such might be her end. However,
+she herself had not liked to look this probability in the face, and had
+preferred to dwell on the faint hope held out to her that she might
+linger on as an invalid for many a year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+WHAT TO DO WITH HER?
+
+
+After Mrs. Rushton had been laid to rest in her grave her worldly
+affairs had to be looked into. She had died possessed of a great deal of
+property, and her relations were well aware that she had never made a
+will. Her brother had lately urged her to make a will, but she had
+always put off the unpleasant task. Now there was nothing to be done but
+to divide the property among the relatives to whom it reverted by law.
+
+After the funeral her late husband's relations and Mr. Enderby met at
+Amber Hill and discussed these matters of business.
+
+In the meantime Hetty had been left at Amber Hill in the care of the
+housekeeper, for Mr. Enderby would not allow his wife to carry her off
+to Wavertree.
+
+"It would be a mistake," he said, "to begin what we may not think proper
+to go on with afterwards. If the child comes home with us now she may
+feel herself aggrieved, later, at being sent away. To act with prudence
+is our first duty towards her."
+
+So Hetty had been left with the housekeeper, who, being a kind woman in
+her way, tried to comfort her with cakes and jam. Her only real comfort
+was her darling Scamp, and with her arms round his shaggy neck she shed
+many a tear of loneliness and terror. Her heart was full of anxious
+fears as to what was going to become of her.
+
+She had stolen into the room where the dead woman lay to take her last
+farewell of her benefactress. Nobody watched there, and Hetty easily
+found an opportunity for paying her tearful visit. Scamp, who never left
+her side, accompanied her with a sad solemnity in his countenance, and
+these were perhaps the two most real mourners whom the wealthy lady had
+left behind her.
+
+Now all was over, and Mrs. Rushton's room looked vacant and with as
+little sign of her presence as if she had never inhabited it. The wintry
+sunshine smiled in at all the windows of her handsome house, and made it
+cheerful even though the blinds were drawn down. The robins twittered in
+the evergreens outside, and the maids had their little jokes as usual
+over their sewing, though they spoke in lowered tones. No great and
+terrible change seemed to have happened to any one but Hetty, except
+indeed to Scamp, and it was plain that he suffered only for Hetty's
+sake.
+
+On the day when Mrs. Rushton's relations met at Amber Hill Hetty sat in
+the housekeeper's room in a little straw chair at the fire, with Scamp
+clasped in her arms and her head resting against his. She felt
+instinctively that her fate was being sealed upstairs. Indeed a few
+words which had passed between Grant and the housekeeper, and which she
+had accidentally overheard, assured her that such would be the case.
+
+"If Mrs. Rushton has left her nothing," said Grant, "she'll be out on
+the world again, as she was before. Mrs. Kane may take her, unless the
+gentlemen do something for her."
+
+"Mr. Enderby will never allow her to go back to poor Anne Kane," said
+the housekeeper. "There's many a cheap way of providing for a friendless
+child, and it wouldn't be fair to put her on a woman that can hardly
+keep her own little home together."
+
+Hetty's anguish was unspeakable as these words sank into her heart, each
+one making a wound. She shuddered at the thought of going back to Mrs.
+Kane, but felt even more horror of those unknown "cheap ways of
+providing for a friendless child," alluded to by the housekeeper. A
+perfect sea of tribulation rolled over her head as she bent it in
+despair, and wept forlornly on Scamp's comfortable neck.
+
+In the meantime, as Hetty surmised, her fate was being decided upstairs.
+No provision had been made by Mrs. Rushton for the child whom she had
+taken into her home, petted and indulged, and accustomed to every
+luxury. The relations of Mrs. Rushton's late husband, who lived at a
+great distance and had not been on intimate terms with her, were not
+much impressed by the lady's carelessness of Hetty. But Mr. Enderby, who
+knew all the circumstances, felt that a wrong had been done.
+
+"Some provision ought to be made for the child," he said; "that is a
+matter about which there can be no doubt."
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Rushton, who had inherited most of his
+sister-in-law's property. "There are cheap schools where girls in her
+position can be educated according to their station. Afterwards we can
+see about giving her a trade, millinery and dressmaking, I suppose, or
+something of that kind."
+
+Mr. Enderby looked troubled. "I do not think that would be quite fair,"
+he said, "I would urge that she should receive a good education. She
+ought to be brought up a lady, having been so long accustomed to expect
+it."
+
+"I quite disagree with you," said Mr. Rushton; "there are too many idle
+ladies in the world. And who is to support her when she is grown up?"
+
+"I do not wish to make her an idle lady," said Mr. Enderby, "but I would
+fit her to be a governess."
+
+"There are too many governesses; better keep her down to a lower level
+and teach her to be content to be a tradeswoman. As far as I am
+concerned, I will consent to nothing better than this for the girl."
+
+"Then we need not speak of it any more," returned Mr. Enderby. "I will
+take the responsibility of the child upon myself."
+
+Mr. Rushton shrugged his shoulders. "Do as you please," he said, "but
+remember it is your own choice. If you change your mind, call upon me."
+
+So the matter ended. When the library door opened, and the gentlemen
+were heard preparing to depart, Hetty flew upstairs and stole into the
+hall, where Mr. Enderby, who was the last to go, suddenly saw her little
+white face gazing at him with a dumb anxiety.
+
+"Well, my dear," he said kindly, "how are you getting on?"
+
+"Oh sir, will you please tell me where I am to go to?" implored Hetty.
+
+"Don't fret yourself about that," said Mr. Enderby, buttoning up his
+coat. "We are not going to let you be lost. You just stay patiently with
+Mrs. Benson till you hear again from me."
+
+And then he nodded to her and took his departure.
+
+That evening he had a serious conversation with his wife about Hetty
+Gray.
+
+"I have made up my mind it will be better to bring her here," he said
+abruptly.
+
+"My dear! is that wise?" exclaimed his wife, thinking with sudden
+anxiety of Phyllis's great dislike to Hetty, and Hetty's uncompromising
+pride.
+
+"It is the best plan I can think of, but do not mistake me. If Hetty
+comes here it will be expressly understood by her and others that she is
+not to be brought up as my own daughter. She will merely enjoy the
+security of the shelter of our roof, and will receive a good education
+such as will fit her to provide, later, for herself."
+
+"Will it be easy to carry out this plan?" asked Mrs. Enderby.
+
+"That I must leave to you, my dear. You are firm enough and wise enough
+to succeed where others would probably fail. The only alternative that I
+can think of is to send her to an expensive school where she will
+certainly not be prepared for the battle of life. As for sending her to
+a lower style of place, and making a charity girl of her after all that
+has been done to accustom her to the society of well-bred people, the
+bare thought of such injustice makes me angry."
+
+Mrs. Enderby looked admiringly at her husband.
+
+"You are right," she said; "and I will try to carry out your plan. It
+will add greatly to my cares, for I fear Hetty's will be a difficult
+nature to deal with, especially when she finds herself in so uncertain a
+position in our house."
+
+The next day Mrs. Enderby drove over to Amber Hill and desired Mrs.
+Benson to send Hetty to her in the morning-room. When the child appeared
+she was greatly struck by the traces of suffering on her countenance,
+and felt renewed anxiety as to the difficulty of carrying out her
+husband's wishes.
+
+"My child," she said kindly, taking the little girl's hand and drawing
+her to her knees, "I have a good deal to say to you, and I hope you
+will try to understand me perfectly."
+
+Hetty gave her one swift upward glance in which there was keen
+expectation, mingled with more of fear than hope.
+
+"I will try," she whispered.
+
+"You know, my dear, that Mrs. Rushton was very good to you while she
+lived, yet you had no real claim on her, and now that she is gone you
+are as much alone as if you had never seen her."
+
+Mrs. Enderby was surprised by Hetty's swift answer.
+
+"More alone," she said, with a stern look in her young face; "for if she
+had not taken me I could have stayed with Mrs. Kane. I should have loved
+Mrs. Kane, and now I do not love her."
+
+"There is some truth in all that," said Mrs. Enderby; "but at all
+events, my dear, you have enjoyed many advantages during the last five
+or six years. There is no question now of your going back to Mrs. Kane.
+Mr. Enderby will not allow it."
+
+"Grant says there are cheap ways of providing for friendless children,"
+said Hetty, whose tongue had become dry in her mouth with fear of what
+might come next.
+
+"Never mind what Grant says," said Mrs. Enderby; "attend only to what I
+tell you. Mr. Enderby and I have thought deeply over your future, Hetty,
+and we are really anxious to do what is best for you."
+
+Hetty said nothing. All the powers of her mind were strained in
+wondering expectation of what she was now going to hear.
+
+"We have been advised to send you to a school where you would be made
+fit to provide for yourself when you become a woman," continued the
+lady, "but we have decided to take you into our own house instead; on
+condition, however, that you try to be industrious and studious. By the
+time you have grown up, I hope you will be able to make use of the good
+education we shall give you, and will have learned the value of
+independence. Do you understand me completely, Hetty? We are going to
+educate you to be a governess. You shall live in our house and join in
+the studies of our children, and enjoy the comfort and protection of our
+home. But of course you cannot look forward to sharing the future of our
+daughters."
+
+"I understand," said Hetty slowly; and the whole state of the case, in
+all its bearings, appeared in true colours before her intelligent mind.
+
+"I hope you are satisfied also," said Mrs. Enderby, who was determined,
+even at the risk of being a little hard, that the child should
+thoroughly know her place, and learn to be grateful for the protection
+afforded her. "When you are older, my child, you will comprehend what
+your elders now know, that my poor sister, Mrs. Rushton, made a great
+mistake in raising you from the station in which she found you, and
+showering luxuries upon you as she did. We also see, however, that an
+injustice was done to you, and that we whom she has left behind her are
+bound to make amends to you for that. Therefore it is that we are
+keeping you with ourselves, instead of allowing you to run the risk of
+being made unhappy by strangers."
+
+For all answer to this Hetty burst into a fit of wild weeping. Her proud
+little heart was broken at the prospect of returning to Wavertree to be
+snubbed and humbled by Phyllis, and possibly by servants of the same
+disposition as Grant. For the moment she could not remember all those
+worse horrors which her imagination had been conjuring up, and from
+which she was actually saved. She stood trembling and shaking in the
+storm of her grief, trying to stem her floods of tears with her
+quivering little hands, and unable to keep them from raining through her
+fingers on to the floor.
+
+Mrs. Enderby sighed. Though she could not know all Hetty's thoughts, she
+guessed some of them, and her heart sank lower than ever at the thought
+of the trouble which might come of the introduction of so stormy an
+element into her hitherto peaceful household. However, she was not a
+woman to flinch from a duty, when once she had made up her mind to
+recognize it.
+
+"Come, come, my child!" she said, "you have been passing through a great
+trial, but you must try to be brave and make yourself happy with us."
+
+Had Mrs. Enderby taken poor Hetty in her arms and given her a motherly
+kiss, much would have been done to heal the wounds made in the child's
+sensitive heart. But it was part of her plan, conscientiously made, that
+she must not accustom Hetty to caresses, such as she could not expect to
+receive later in life. So she only patted her on the shoulder, and, when
+her passion of crying had a little subsided, bade her run away and get
+on her things, and be ready as soon as possible to come with her to
+Wavertree Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE NEW HOME.
+
+
+Before going to Amber Hill that day, Mrs. Enderby had sent for her two
+girls to come to her in her room, where she informed them of the fact
+that Hetty was coming to the Hall.
+
+"I am going to tell you some news, my children, and I hope you will feel
+it to be good news. I know my little daughters have kind hearts, and I
+am sure they will pity one even younger than themselves who has been
+left without home or protection."
+
+"I suppose you are speaking of Hetty, mother?" said Phyllis.
+
+"Yes, dear. Your father and I have arranged to bring her here."
+
+A faint colour passed over Phyllis's fair pale face, and she said:
+
+"Did Aunt Amy not leave her any money, mother?"
+
+"No; I am sorry to say she did not leave her anything."
+
+"She ought to have done so," said Phyllis.
+
+"Your Aunt Amy was a very peculiar person, Phyllis, and nothing would
+induce her to make a will. She put off the task too long, and died
+without fulfilling it."
+
+"Could those who have got her money now not make it all right?" said
+Phyllis. "Could they not settle some money on her?"
+
+"That would be a difficult matter to arrange, dear. Almost all Mrs.
+Rushton's property has gone to her husband's brother, who is not a very
+generous man, I fear, and the rest, which returns to your father, is in
+trust for his children. He does not feel himself called upon to deprive
+you of what is lawfully yours in order to give a fortune to a foundling
+child."
+
+"I would rather give her some of my money than have her here," said
+Phyllis bluntly.
+
+"You must get over that feeling, Phyllis. It is perhaps a little trial
+to us all to have a stranger among us, but we will endeavour to be kind,
+and all will be for the best."
+
+"And is Hetty to be our own, own sister?" said Nell, fixing her blue
+eyes on her mother's face and speaking for the first time.
+
+"No, my love, not quite. That would not be fair to Hetty, as we cannot
+make her one of our own children. She will be a companion for you and
+join in all your studies. But it is to be understood that such
+advantages are to be given to her only to fit her to be a governess. I
+am anxious that every one should be good to her, but I do not intend her
+to have such luxuries as would but prepare her for great unhappiness
+later on in her life."
+
+"Hetty will never get on with that sort of thing," said Phyllis. "She is
+too proud and too impertinent."
+
+"My dear Phyllis, I believe she has a good heart; and she has been, and
+will be, severely tried. Any failure of generosity on the part of my
+good little girl will disappoint me sadly."
+
+Phyllis closed her lips with an expression which meant that for reasons
+of propriety she would say no more, but that nothing could prevent her
+from feeling that justice and right were on her side; that she had a
+better apprehension of the matter in question than mother or father, or
+any one in the world.
+
+When Hetty arrived that afternoon she was led straight into the
+school-room, where tea was just ready, Mrs. Enderby judging that it
+would be well to set her to work at once, giving her no time for
+moping. When she appeared, looking pale and sad in her black frock, her
+eyes heavy and red with weeping, even Phyllis was touched, and the
+school-room tea was partaken of in peace and almost in silence. Hetty was
+so full of the recollection of the last time she had been brought in
+here by Mrs. Enderby, and so conscious of the change that had come upon
+her since then, that she could scarcely raise her eyes for fear of
+crying. Nell kept pushing cakes and bread and butter before her, Phyllis
+made general remarks in a softer tone than usual, and Miss Davis, who
+perhaps understood Hetty's position better, and sympathized more with
+her, than any of the rest, could think of nothing better to say to the
+forlorn child than to ask her occasionally if she would like some more
+sugar in her tea.
+
+After tea Phyllis and Nell set to work to prepare their lessons for the
+next day, and Hetty was thankful to have a book placed before her, and a
+lesson appointed for her to learn. It was a page in the very beginning
+of a child's English history, and Hetty read it over and over again till
+she had the words almost by heart without in the least having taken in
+their sense. Her thoughts were busy all the time with the looks and
+words of her companions, and with going back over all that had occurred
+that day. Phyllis had been gentler than she expected. Perhaps she was
+not going to be unkind any more. It was a good thing after all to be
+obliged to sit over books, as it would prevent her being talked to more
+than she could bear. Nell was very kind. Would Phyllis allow her to be
+always kind? She had remarked at the first moment that the frocks of the
+two other girls were made of finer stuff than hers, and were trimmed
+with crape. Mrs. Benson had got her her mourning-frock, and had got it,
+of course, as inexpensive as she thought fit under the circumstances.
+
+"Of course they wear crape," thought Hetty, "because Mrs. Rushton was
+their aunt. She was nothing to me, after all, except my mistress. Grant
+used to say things like that and I would not believe her. She was right
+when she said I was only a charity child."
+
+Phyllis and Nell were accustomed to go to the drawing-room for an hour
+or two in the evening after their father and mother had dined, and on
+this occasion Hetty was invited to accompany them. It was not Mrs.
+Enderby's intention that she should always do so, but she considered
+that it would be well to include her to-night.
+
+The last evening spent by Hetty in the drawing-room at the Hall was that
+one on which she had entertained the company with her mimicries. Then,
+full of pride and delight in her own powers of giving amusement, she had
+felt herself in a position to despise all disapproval and dislike. Now,
+how was she fallen! Yet Mr. and Mrs. Enderby received her kindly, and
+paid her as much attention as if she had been an ordinary visitor.
+
+When bed-time came she was taken, not to the pretty room she had
+occupied when last in the house, but to a neat little plain chamber
+which was to be henceforth her own. It was not on the same landing with
+the bed-rooms of Phyllis and Nell, as she was quick to remark, but at
+the end of a long passage off which were the upper maids' bed-rooms, a
+fact which stabbed her pride.
+
+It was, however, a nice little room, placed above the passage and
+ascended to by a few steps, and it had a picturesque lattice window,
+embowered in ivy and passion-flowers. She had hardly comforted herself
+by observing this when she was overcast again by a fresh and unpleasant
+discovery. Her trunk, which had been sent after her by Mrs. Benson, had
+already been unpacked and her things disposed of in a wardrobe. But,
+alas! all her handsome clothing had disappeared. Her velvet and silk
+frocks trimmed with lace and fur, her sashes and necklaces, silk
+stockings and shoes with fantastic rosettes, these and numbers of other
+treasures were no longer to be seen in her room. A sufficient quantity
+of plain underclothing, a black frock to change the one she wore, a
+black hat and jacket, and one or two of her plainest white frocks, these
+were all that remained of the possessions which had but yesterday been
+hers.
+
+When she had recovered herself sufficiently after this disappointment
+to be able to look around the chamber, she saw that her desk and
+work-box, and some of her favourite story-books, had been placed on a
+table at the window. These she was glad to see, and recovering her
+spirits began to remember that after all she had now no right to any of
+those costly articles which she had been allowed to use during Mrs.
+Rushton's lifetime. As she was to live henceforth a humble dependent in
+this house she could have no further need of such luxuries. She had
+remarked that Phyllis and Nell were always simply dressed, and yet they
+had more right to finery than she had.
+
+Hetty had sufficient good sense to know all this without being told. Her
+peculiar experiences had sharpened her reasoning faculties and made her
+keenly observant of what passed before her, and had also given her an
+unusually acute perception of the meanings and influences floating in
+the atmosphere about her from other people's thoughts and words. Child
+as she was, she was able to take, for a moment, Mrs. Enderby's view of
+her own position, and admitted that the kind yet cold lady had acted
+justly in depriving her of useless things. Yet her wilful heart longed
+for the prettinesses that she loved, and she wept herself to sleep
+grieving for their loss, and for the greater loss which it typified.
+
+The next morning her head was aching and her eyes redder than ever when
+she appeared in the school-room, and she seemed more sullen and less
+meek than she had been yesterday. She could not fix her mind on the
+lesson Miss Davis gave her to learn, and made a great display of her
+ignorance when questioned on general subjects. All this was not
+improving to her spirits, and in becoming more unhappy she grew more
+irritable. Miss Davis felt her patience tried by the troublesome new
+pupil, and Phyllis eyed her with strong disapproval over the edges of
+her book. Phyllis loved order, regularity, good conduct, and in her
+opinion Hetty was an intolerably disagreeable interruption of the
+routine of their school-room life.
+
+That was a bad day altogether. Some friends of Mr. and Mrs. Enderby were
+dining with them, and when the school-room tea was over Phyllis and Nell
+told Miss Davis that their mother wished them to come to the
+drawing-room for a short time. Hetty looked up, as she thought herself
+included in the invitation; but Miss Davis, who had received general
+instructions from Mrs. Enderby, said to her quietly:
+
+"You will stay here with me, Hetty, for this evening."
+
+Hetty flushed crimson and her pride was kindled in an instant. She was
+not to go to the drawing-room any more, because she was only a charity
+child. Tears rushed into her eyes, but she forced them back and
+pretended to be very busy with a book. After the other girls had been
+gone some time Miss Davis said:
+
+"I am going to my own room for half an hour, Hetty, and I suppose you
+can amuse yourself with your book till I come back."
+
+When left alone Hetty flung away her book, went down on her face on the
+hearth-rug, and cried with all her might. She thought of evenings when
+she had tripped about gaily in Mrs. Rushton's drawing-room and every one
+was glad to see her. Now, it seemed, she must live all alone in a
+school-room. She forgot that she had ever been unhappy with Mrs.
+Rushton, ever been left alone, or snubbed or neglected in her house; for
+Hetty, like many other people, old and young, lost all her excellent
+power of reasoning when overmastered by passion. In the old time she had
+been happy, she thought, cared for, loved, made much of. Now she was
+beloved by nobody, not even for an hour.
+
+In her desolation she could not think of any creature that loved her
+except Scamp, the dog who had been her only comfort since this trouble
+had befallen her; and he was left behind at Amber Hill. She had begged
+to be allowed to bring him with her to Wavertree, but Mr. Enderby
+objected, saying that there were already too many dogs about the place.
+
+As soon as Miss Davis returned to the school-room Hetty asked to be
+allowed to go to bed.
+
+"I have just been looking out some materials for needlework for you,"
+said Miss Davis. "It is quite time you learned to sew; I hope you will
+find amusement in the occupation. However, if you are tired you may go
+to bed. As a rule the girls do not go to bed till nine o'clock."
+
+Hetty shuddered as she looked at the needle-work which was prepared for
+her. In her eyes it was only a new instrument of torture. She did not
+even know how to hold a needle; she did not want to know. Mrs. Rushton
+had never been seen sewing; it was only the maids who had any occasion
+to sew.
+
+"I hate sewing," said Hetty despairingly.
+
+"Then you must learn to like it," said Miss Davis briskly; "little girls
+are not allowed to hate anything that is useful, especially little girls
+who must look forward to providing for themselves in the world by their
+own exertions. But go to bed now. Tomorrow I hope you will be in a
+better humour."
+
+And Hetty vanished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+HETTY TURNS REBEL.
+
+
+Hetty cried herself to sleep as she had done the night before, and her
+last thought was of Scamp. About the middle of the night she had a dream
+in which she fancied that Scamp's paws were round her neck, and that he
+was barking in her ear his delight at seeing her. The barking went on
+so long that it wakened her, for it was real barking that had caused the
+dream.
+
+Hetty sat up in her bed and listened. Surely that was Scamp's bark,
+loud, sharp, and impatient, as if he was saying, "Where's Hetty? I want
+Hetty. I will not go away till I have found Hetty." In the stillness of
+the night it sounded to the lonely child like the voice of a dear friend
+longing to comfort her. She jumped out of bed, threw open the window,
+and listened again. Could it be that he had found the way from Amber
+Hill, and come so many miles to look for her? Darling old Scamp, was it
+possible he loved her so much? Yes, it was indeed his voice; he was
+outside the house, almost under her window, and she must and would go
+down and take him in.
+
+She opened the door cautiously and went out into the passage. The
+barking was not heard so distinctly here, and she hoped that no one
+would hear it but herself. How dreadful if somebody should go and beat
+him away before she could reach him! She pattered down-stairs with her
+little bare feet and made her way through the darkness to the great hall
+door. But she had forgotten how great and heavy that door was, and had
+not thought of the chain that hung across it at night, and the big lock
+in which she could not turn the key. Scamp heard her trying to open the
+door, and barked more joyfully. Unable to unfasten this door she made
+her way to another at the back of the house, and, withdrawing a bolt,
+she stood in the doorway, her little white night-dress blowing in the
+winter's night air, and her bare feet on the stones of the threshold.
+
+"Scamp, Scamp!" she called in a soft voice, and, wonderful to tell, he
+heard her and came flying round the house.
+
+"Oh, Scampie, dear, _have_ you come, and do you really love me still?"
+whispered Hetty as the dog leaped into her arms, and she clasped his
+paws round her neck and kissed his shaggy head.
+
+Scamp uttered a few short rapturous exclamations and licked her face and
+hands all over.
+
+"But you must be very quiet," she said, "or you will wake the house and
+we shall be caught. Come now, lovie, and I'll hide you in my own room."
+
+She closed the door as quietly as possible and crept upstairs again,
+carrying the dog hugged in her arms.
+
+As she stole along the passage to her room, one of the maids whispered
+to another who was sleeping in the room with her:
+
+"Oh, I have heard a great noise down-stairs, and one of the dogs was
+barking. And just now I am sure I heard feet in the passage."
+
+"Some one has got into the house then," said the other maid listening.
+
+"Oh, lie still, don't get up!" said the first maid. "It must be
+burglars."
+
+"I will go and waken the men," said the other courageously. And
+down-stairs she went and wakened the butler and footman. Soon they were
+all searching the house, the butler armed with a gun, the others with
+large pokers. No burglars were to be found, and the butler was very
+cross at having been called out of his bed for nothing at all.
+
+The maids persisted that some one had been in the house, some one who
+must have escaped while they were giving the alarm. Mr. Enderby heard
+the noise and came out of his room and learned the whole story. After an
+hour of searching and questioning and discussion all went to bed again,
+everybody blaming everybody else for the silly mistake that had been
+made.
+
+Next morning Hetty slept long and soundly after her midnight adventure,
+and when the maid who called her went into her room she was astonished
+to see a dog's head on the pillow by the sleeping child. Scamp put up
+his nose and barked at the intruder, and Hetty wakened.
+
+"Laws, Miss Hetty, you are a strange little girl," said the maid, who
+was the very girl who had alarmed the house during the night. "How ever
+did you get a dog into your room?"
+
+"It's only Scamp, my own Scamp, and he wouldn't hurt anybody," said
+Hetty; "please don't beat him away, Lucy. He came in the middle of the
+night trying to find me, and I took him in. Perhaps Mrs. Enderby will
+let me keep him now."
+
+"That I am sure she will not," said Lucy. "You naughty little girl. And
+so it was you who disturbed the house last night, frightening us all out
+of our senses, and getting me scolded for giving an alarm. Wait till Mr.
+Enderby hears about it."
+
+"You are _very_ unkind," said Hetty; "as if I could help his coming in
+the night-time!"
+
+"And I suppose you could not help letting him into the house and taking
+him into your bed?" said Lucy scornfully.
+
+"No, I couldn't," said Hetty. "And you can go and tell Mr. Enderby as
+soon as you please."
+
+At this Lucy flounced out of the room quite determined to complain of
+the enormity of Hetty's conduct.
+
+When the little girl appeared in the school-room with Scamp following at
+her heels she was not in the best of tempers, and held her chin very
+high in the air. Miss Davis met her with a stern face.
+
+"Hetty, what is this I hear of you? How could you dare to bring a
+strange dog into the house in the middle of the night?"
+
+"It wasn't a strange dog; it was Scamp," said Hetty, putting on her most
+defiant air. "I don't think it was any harm to let him in."
+
+"Not, though I tell you it was?" said Miss Davis.
+
+"No," said Hetty.
+
+"Then I must ask Mrs. Enderby to talk to you," said Miss Davis.
+"Meantime the dog cannot stay here while we are at breakfast."
+
+And she rang the bell.
+
+"Tell Thomas to come and fetch this dog away to the stable-yard," she
+said to the maid who answered the bell.
+
+"Scamp always stayed in the room with me at Amber Hill," said Hetty, two
+red spots burning in her cheeks.
+
+"You must learn to remember that you are no longer at Amber Hill," said
+Miss Davis.
+
+Phyllis and Nell now came into the school-room and looked greatly
+surprised at sight of the dog, Hetty's angry face, and Miss Davis's
+looks of high displeasure. They took their places in silence at the
+breakfast table.
+
+"I am not likely to forget it," retorted Hetty bitterly. "At Amber Hill
+everybody was kind to me. Nobody is kind here."
+
+"You are a most ungrateful girl," said Miss Davis. "What would have
+become of you if Mr. and Mrs. Enderby had not been kind?"
+
+At this moment Thomas entered.
+
+"Take away that dog to the stable-yard," said Miss Davis.
+
+Hetty threw her arms round Scamp's neck and clung to him.
+
+"You shall not turn him out," she cried. "He came and found me, and I
+will not give him up."
+
+"Do as I have told you, Thomas," said Miss Davis; and Thomas seized
+Scamp in spite of Hetty's struggles, and carried him off, howling
+dismally.
+
+"Now, you naughty girl, you may go back to your own room, and stay there
+till you are ready to apologize to me for your conduct," said Miss
+Davis.
+
+"Oh, please don't send Hetty away without her breakfast," pleaded Nell.
+
+"I will go. I will not stay here. I will run away!" cried Hetty wildly.
+
+"Let her go, Nell," said Phyllis, giving her sister a warning look; and
+Miss Davis said:
+
+"When she is hungry she can apologize for her conduct. In the meantime
+she had better go away and be left alone till she recovers her senses."
+
+Hetty fled out of the room and away to her own little chamber, where she
+locked herself in and flung herself in a passion of rage and grief on
+the floor.
+
+"I _will_ go away," she sobbed. "I will run away with Scamp and seek my
+fortune. Miss Davis is going to be as bad as Grant, reminding me that I
+am a charity child. Oh, why was I not born like Phyllis and Nell, with
+people to love me and a home to belong to? It is easy for them to be
+good. But I shall never be good. I know, I know I never shall!"
+
+After half an hour had passed a knock came to the door, and Lucy
+demanded to be admitted.
+
+"Go away, you cruel creature!" cried Hetty. "I will not have you here."
+
+Lucy went away, and after some time Hetty heard Mrs. Enderby's voice at
+the door.
+
+"I hope you will not refuse to let me in," she said. "I request that you
+will open the door."
+
+Hetty rose from the floor very unwillingly and opened the door, and Mrs.
+Enderby came in.
+
+"Hetty, what is the meaning of this strange conduct?" she said, looking
+at the marks of wild weeping on the child's swollen face.
+
+"Everybody's conduct has been bad to me," wailed Hetty.
+
+"What has been done to you?" asked Mrs. Enderby.
+
+"Everyone hates Scamp, and they have taken him away. And I have no one
+to love me but him."
+
+"Perhaps people would love you if you were not so fierce and wild,
+Hetty," said Mrs. Enderby. "Now, try and listen to me while I talk to
+you. It was very wrong of you to get up in the night and open the door,
+so as to alarm the house by the noise. And it was very wrong of you to
+take a dog into your room and into your bed."
+
+"It was Scamp," mourned Hetty. "Scamp loves me. And how could I leave
+him outside when he wanted to be with me?"
+
+"You could have done so because it would have been right," said Mrs.
+Enderby. "You knew that Mr. Enderby had refused to allow the dog to come
+here. You ought to have remembered his wishes. He has been very good to
+you, and you must learn to obey him."
+
+"It is cruel of him not to let me have Scamp," persisted Hetty; "he
+never bites anyone, and he is better than the other dogs. Why can I not
+have him for my own?"
+
+"I will not answer that question, Hetty; it must be enough for you that
+you are to obey. You must stay here by yourself till you are in a better
+state of mind."
+
+Then Mrs. Enderby went away, and Hetty fell into another agony of grief,
+thinking about Scamp.
+
+She forgot the breakfast which she had not yet tasted, and felt every
+moment a greater longing to see her dog again. Where had they taken him?
+she wondered. Was he still in the stable-yard? Perhaps they would drown
+him to get rid of him. Possessed by this fear she seized her hat and
+flew out of the room, quite reckless of consequences, and as it chanced,
+she met no one on her way down-stairs and along all the back passages
+leading towards the stable-yard.
+
+Arrived there she was guided by his barking to the spot where Scamp was.
+He was chained in a kennel in a corner of the yard, where it was
+intended he should remain till a new master or mistress could be found
+for him. Hetty watched her opportunity, and when there was no one about
+flew into the yard, slipped the chain off his neck, and sped out of the
+place again, with the dog following joyfully at her heels.
+
+In acting thus the little girl had merely followed a wild impulse, and
+had formed no plan for her future conduct with regard to Scamp. Finding
+herself in his company now, she thought only of prolonging the pleasure
+and escaping with him somewhere out of the reach of unfriendly eyes. She
+darted through the outer gate of the stable-yard just as the great clock
+above the archway was striking ten; and was soon plunging through a
+copse on the outskirts of the village, and making for the open country.
+
+Scamp snuffed the breeze and barked for joy, and Hetty danced along over
+the grass and through trees, forgetting everything but her own intense
+enjoyment of freedom in the open air that she loved. Over yonder lay the
+forge, where, as a baby of four, she had watched the great horses being
+shod, and the sparks flying from their feet; and further on were the
+fields and the bit of wood where she had roamed alone, up to her eyes in
+the tall flag leaves and mistaking the yellow lilies for butterflies of
+a larger growth. She did not remember all that now, but some pleasant
+consciousness of a former free happy existence in the midst of this
+fresh peaceful landscape came across her mind at moments, like gales of
+hawthorn-scented air. Mrs. Enderby's mild lectures, Phyllis's contempt,
+Miss Davis's shocked propriety, even Nell's easily snubbed efforts to
+stand her friend, all vanished out of her memory as she went skimming
+along the grass like a swallow, thrilling in all her young nerves with
+the freshness and wildness of the breeze of heaven, and the vigour and
+buoyancy of the life within her veins.
+
+Five miles into the open country went Hetty, by a road she had never
+seen before. She knew not, nor did she think at all of where she was
+going; she only had a delightful sense of exploring new worlds. However,
+about the middle of the day she felt very hungry. She began to remember
+then that she could not keep on roving for ever, and that there was
+probably trouble before her at Wavertree, waiting for her return.
+
+She sat down on a bank to rest, and Scamp nestled beside her,
+alternately looking in her face and licking her hands. It occurred to
+Hetty that perhaps he was hungry too, and that if she had left him in
+the stable-yard he would at least have got his dinner. Remorse troubled
+her, and she cast about to try and discover something they two could
+eat. A tempting-looking bunch of berries hung from a tree near her, and
+she thought that if she could reach them they might be of some slight
+use in allaying the pangs of hunger felt by both her and her dog. She
+was at once on her feet, and straining all her limbs to reach the
+berries.
+
+They were caught, the branch broke, and Hetty fell down the bank,
+twisting her foot and spraining her ankle badly.
+
+After the first cry wrung from her by the shock she was very silent; and
+having gathered herself up as well as she could, she sat on the ground,
+unable to attempt to stand. The pain was excessive, and great tears
+rolled down her cheeks as she endured it. Scamp gazed at her piteously,
+snuffed all round her, and looked as if he would like to take her on his
+back and carry her home. She threw her arms round his neck and hugged
+him.
+
+"No, you can't help me, Scampie, dear, and I don't know what is to
+become of us. I can't move, and nobody knows where I have gone to. Of
+course it is all my fault, for I know I have been very disobedient. But
+I didn't feel wicked, not a bit."
+
+Scamp licked her face and huffed and snuffed all round her. Then he made
+several discontented remarks which Hetty understood quite well, though
+it is not easy to translate them here. Then he hustled round her, and
+scurried up and down the road looking for help; and finally sat on his
+tail on the top of the bank, and pointing his nose up at the unlucky
+tree on which the berries had hung, howled out dismally to the world in
+general that Hetty was in real trouble now, and somebody had better
+come and look to it.
+
+After a long time some one did come at last. The wintry evening was just
+beginning to close in and the short twilight to fall on the lonely road,
+blotting out the red berries on the trees, when a sound of wheels and
+the cracking of a carter's whip struck upon Hetty's ears. Scamp had
+heard them first and rushed away barking joyfully in the direction of
+the sound, to meet the carter, whoever he might be, and to tell him to
+come on fast and take up Hetty in his cart and bring her safely home.
+
+Presently Scamp came frolicking back, and soon after came a great team
+of powerful horses, drawing a long cart laden with trunks of trees,
+which John Kane, the carter, was bringing from the woods to be chopped
+up for firewood for the use of the Hall. At this sight a dim
+recollection of the past arose in Hetty's brain. Had she not seen this
+great cart and horses long ago, and was not the face of the man like a
+face she had seen in a dream? She had not had time to think of all this
+when John Kane pulled up his team before her and spoke to her.
+
+"Be you hurt, little miss?" he said good-naturedly; "I thought something
+was wrong by the bark of your dog. He told me as plain as print that I
+was wanted. 'Look sharp, John Kane!' he said; and how he knows my name I
+can't tell. There, let me sit you in the cart, and I'll jolt you as
+little as may be."
+
+Hetty was thankful to be put in the cart, and it seemed to her a very
+strange chance that had brought John Kane a second time in her life to
+rescue her. He did not know her at all, and she did not like to tell him
+who she was.
+
+"Now, where can I take you to?" he said, as they neared the village.
+
+"I came from Wavertree Hall," said Hetty, hanging her head, "and," she
+added with a great throb of her heart, "my name is Hetty Gray."
+
+"Law, you don't say so!" said honest John; "our little Hetty that is
+turned into a lady! Well, child, it's not the first time you have got a
+ride in John Kane's cart. You cannot remember, but you used to be main
+fond of these very horses, watching them getting shod and running among
+their feet. However, bygones is bygones, and you won't want to hear
+anything of all that. Now, I can't drive you up to the door of the Hall
+in this lumbering big vehicle; but if you'll condescend to come to our
+cottage for an hour, I'll take a message to say where you are, and Mrs.
+Enderby will send for you properly, no doubt."
+
+Hetty's heart was full as she thanked John Kane for his kindness. She
+had almost been afraid that he would break out into raptures and want to
+hug her as Mrs. Kane had done; but when she found him so cold and
+respectful a lump rose in her throat, and something seemed to tell her
+that as she had pushed away from her the love of these good honest
+people, she deserved to be as lonely and unloved as she was.
+
+Fortunately it was quite dark when the cart passed through the village,
+so that no one noticed whom John Kane had got cowering down in his cart
+behind the logs of timber. When he stopped at his own door his wife came
+out, and he said to her in a low voice:
+
+"Look you here, Anne, if I haven't brought you home little Hetty a
+second time out of trouble. Found her on the road I did, with her ankle
+sprained. We'll take her in for the present, and I'll go to the Hall and
+tell the gentlefolks."
+
+Mrs. Kane had just been making ready her husband's tea, and the fire was
+burning brightly in her tidy kitchen, making it look pretty and
+homelike. She was greatly astonished at her husband's news, and came to
+the cart at once, though with a soreness at heart, remembering her last
+meeting with Hetty, and thinking how little pleasure the child would
+find in this enforced visit to her early home.
+
+"Now hurry away to the Hall and give the message," said Mrs. Kane; "your
+tea will keep till you come back. Little Miss Gray will be anxious to
+get home to those who are expecting her."
+
+"Oh, please let him take his tea first," cried Hetty; "there will be no
+hurry to get me back. I have been very naughty and everyone will be
+angry with me. Please, Mr. Kane, take your tea before you go."
+
+John Kane smiled. "Thank you, little maid; but you see the horses are
+wanting to go home to their stable. And I'd rather finish all my work
+before I sit down."
+
+He went away and Hetty was left alone in the firelight with her first
+foster-mother.
+
+"Perhaps you are hungry, little miss," said Anne. "You have had a long
+walk, maybe, with your dog."
+
+Scamp had curled himself up on the "settle" at Hetty's feet.
+
+Hetty felt a pang at the words "little miss," but she knew it was her
+own pride that had brought this treatment upon her. Perhaps Mrs. Kane
+had once loved her as Scamp did now; but of course she would never love
+her again. At all events she was dear and good for taking Scamp in
+without a word of objection, and allowing him to rest himself
+comfortably at her fireside.
+
+"I am _dreadfully_ hungry," said Hetty, in a low ashamed voice, and
+looking up at Mrs. Kane with serious eyes. "I have not eaten anything
+to-day. I sprained my ankle getting the berries, and they fell so far
+away I could not pick them up."
+
+"Not eaten to-day? What,--no breakfast even?"
+
+"No," said Hetty. "I was bad in the morning, or I should have got some.
+At least they said I was bad, but I did not feel it."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I took in Scamp in the night when he barked at the window, and I wanted
+to keep him, though Mr. Enderby would not have him about the place; and
+I fought to get him. And I told Mrs. Enderby that I ought to have him.
+And then I took him out of the stable-yard and ran away with him."
+
+"I'm afraid that was badness in the end," said Mrs. Kane. "It began with
+goodness, but it ran to badness. Deary me, it's often the same with
+myself. I think I'm so right that I can't go wrong. But all comes
+straight again when we're sorry for a fault."
+
+"But I can't be sorry for keeping Scamp when he loves me so. Nobody else
+loves me," cried Hetty, with a burst of tears.
+
+Mrs. Kane was by her side in a minute. "Not love you! don't they, my
+dear? Well, there's somebody that loves you more than Scamp, _that_ I
+know. Come, now, dry your eyes and eat a bit. There's a nicer cup of tea
+than they'd give you at the Hall; for the little brown pot on the hearth
+makes better tea than ever comes out of silver. I was a maid in a big
+house once myself, and I know the difference."
+
+In answer to this Hetty sat up as well as the pain of her foot would
+allow, and flung her arms round Mrs. Kane's neck.
+
+"Oh, keep me here with you!" she cried. "I am tired of being grand. I
+will stay with you and learn to be a useful girl, if only you will love
+me."
+
+Mrs. Kane heaved a long sigh as Hetty's arms fastened round her neck.
+Now she felt rewarded for all the love and care she had poured out on
+the child during the three years she had had her for her own. A little
+bit of hard ice that had always been lying at the bottom of her heart
+ever since Hetty had left her, now melted away, and she said, half
+laughing and half crying:
+
+"Come now, deary, don't be talking nonsense. Nice and fit you'd be to
+bear with a cottage life after all you've been seeing. Don't you think
+the gentlefolks would give you up so easily as that. But whenever you
+want a word of love and a heart to rest your bit of a head upon like
+this, mind you remember where they're always waiting for you, Hetty."
+
+Hetty sobbed and clung to her more closely, and it was some time before
+she could be induced to eat and drink. When she did so the homely meal
+set before her seemed to her the most delicious she had ever tasted.
+
+"Oh I am so glad I have found my way back to you," she said; "I never
+should have done it if I hadn't got into such trouble. Oh, you don't
+know how proud and bad I have been! I know I've been bad, now that you
+are so good to me."
+
+After about an hour John Kane came back. He had been obliged to wait to
+put up his horses and see to their wants for the night before he could
+come home. The message he brought from the Hall was that Hetty must stay
+where she was till her foot was better, as moving about was so bad for a
+sprain. Mrs. Enderby would see Mrs. Kane about her to-morrow.
+
+The tiny whitewashed room where she slept that night was the one in
+which she had slept when a toddling baby, and Hetty wondered at herself
+as she looked round it thankfully. A patchwork quilt covered the bed,
+and a flower-pot in the one small window, and some coloured prints on
+the wall, were its only adornments. But it was extremely clean and neat,
+and, in spite of the pain in her foot, Hetty felt more content as she
+laid her head on the coarse pillow than she had felt for a great many
+weeks past.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A COTTAGE CHILD AGAIN.
+
+
+Some time passed before Hetty saw any of the family at the Hall again.
+Mr. Enderby was much displeased at her escapade, and resolved she should
+be punished. He thought the best way to punish her was to leave her in
+the care of Mrs. Kane. The hard and lowly living she would have to
+endure there would, he thought, subdue her pride and teach her to be
+meek and grateful on her return to a more comfortable home. By his
+desire Mrs. Enderby refrained from going to see the child. Mrs. Kane was
+sent for to the Hall and directed to take every care of her charge; but
+on no account whatever to pamper her.
+
+At first Hetty was startled to find how very ready they were at the Hall
+to let her completely drop out of their lives, and at times she repined,
+but on the whole she was happier, and every day seemed to arouse her
+more and more to a better sense of the duties that lay round her in
+life, While seated on her old settle she watched Mrs. Kane sweeping and
+washing the floor, polishing up the windows and bits of furniture, and
+making the humble home shine. Hetty longed to be able to take broom and
+scrubbing-brush from her hands and help her with the troublesome work.
+When she found that by learning to hold her needle she could help to
+darn and mend for her dear friend, she eagerly gave her mind to
+acquiring the necessary knowledge. Books were scarce in John Kane's
+house, but Hetty did not miss them. At this time of her life all books,
+except stories, were hateful to her, and she thought she had read enough
+stories. It became a perfect delight to her to see Mrs. Kane shake out
+an old flannel jacket and hold it up to the light and declare that Hetty
+had mended it as well as she could have done it herself. "And that will
+save my eyes to-night," she would say, to Hetty's intense pleasure, who,
+now for the first time in her young life, tasted the joy of being useful
+to others.
+
+When her foot was sufficiently better to allow her to limp about, John
+Kane made her a crutch, and Hetty felt more gladness at receiving this
+present than Mrs. Rushton's expensive gifts had ever given her. After
+this she used to hop about the cottage, dusting and polishing, and doing
+many little "turns" which were a great help to Mrs. Kane. She soon knew
+how to cook the dinner and make the tea, and when Mrs. Kane was busy or
+had to go out, it was Hetty's delight to have everything ready for her
+return. To save her black frock from being spoiled by work she had
+learned to make herself a large gingham blouse, in which she felt free
+to do anything she pleased without harming her clothes.
+
+In this simple active life Hetty developed a new spirit which surprised
+herself as much as it astonished her humble friends. She worked in the
+garden and tended the poultry, besides performing various tasks which
+she took upon herself indoors. And in this sort of happy industry
+several weeks flew, almost uncounted, away.
+
+One evening Mrs. Kane and Hetty were sitting at the fire waiting for
+John to come in. They were both tired after their day's work. Mrs. Kane
+was sitting in a straw arm-chair and Hetty rested with her feet up on
+the settle. The little brown tea-pot was on the red tiles by the hearth,
+and the firelight blinked on the tea-cups.
+
+"Mrs. Kane," said Hetty, "will you let me call you mammy?"
+
+"Will I?" said Mrs. Kane. "To be sure I will, darling, and glad to hear
+you. But wouldn't mother be a prettier word in your mouth?"
+
+"Phyllis calls Mrs. Enderby mother," said Hetty, "and it sounds cold.
+Mammy will be a little word of our own."
+
+"And when you go back to the Hall you will sometimes come to see your
+old mammy?"
+
+"I think I am going to ask you to let me stay here always," said Hetty.
+
+"Nay, dear, that wouldn't be right. You've got to get educated and grow
+up a lady."
+
+"I could go to the village school," said Hetty; "I'm not clever at
+books, and they could teach me there all I want to learn. When I grow up
+I might be the village teacher. And you and Mr. Kane could live with me
+in the school-house when you are old."
+
+"Bless the child's heart! How she has planned it all out. But don't be
+thinking of such foolishness, my Hetty. Providence has other doings in
+store for you."
+
+One of the happiest things about this time was that Scamp was as
+welcome in the cottage as Hetty was herself. He slept by the kitchen
+fire every night, and shared all Hetty's work and play during the
+daytime. Indeed, nothing could be more satisfactory than the child's
+life in these days with Mrs. Kane. What in the meantime had become of
+her extraordinary pride? Love and service seemed to have completely
+destroyed it.
+
+One day, however, there came an interruption to her peace. Lucy, the
+maid, arrived with a message to know when Hetty would be able and
+willing to return to the Hall.
+
+Mrs. Kane was out and Hetty was sitting in the sun at the back-garden
+door with one of John Kane's huge worsted stockings pulled over one
+little hand, while she darned away at it with the other. At sight of
+Lucy her pride instantly waked up within her and rose in arms. Hetty
+stared in dismay at smart flippant Lucy, and felt the old bad feelings
+rush back on her. Tears started to her eyes as she saw all her lately
+acquired goodness flying away down the garden path, as it seemed to her,
+and out at the little garden gate.
+
+"I don't think I am ready to go yet," said she; "but I will write to
+Mrs. Enderby myself. Would you like to see Scamp, Lucy? He has grown so
+fat and looks so well."
+
+Hetty could not resist saying this little triumphant word about the
+dog. However, Lucy was ready with a retort.
+
+"I suppose he was used to cottages," she said. "People generally do best
+with what they have been accustomed to."
+
+Hetty's ears burned with the implied taunt to herself, but she said with
+great dignity:
+
+"You can go now, Lucy. I don't think I have anything more to say to
+you."
+
+And Lucy found herself willing to go, though she had intended saying a
+great many more sharp things to the child, whom she, like Grant,
+regarded as an impertinent little upstart.
+
+That evening Hetty made a tremendous effort and wrote a letter to Mrs.
+Enderby.
+
+"Deer Madam,--My foot is well, but Mrs. Kane is making me good and I
+would like to stay with her. I am sorry for Badness and giving trubbel.
+I could lern to work and be Mrs. Kane's child.
+     Yours obeedyentley, HETTY."
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Enderby smiled over this letter together that evening.
+
+"Poor little monkey," said the former, "there is more in her than I
+imagined. But what spelling for a girl of her age!"
+
+"Might it not do to allow her to stay where she is, coming up here for
+lessons, and to walk occasionally with the girls?"
+
+"I do not like the idea of it," said Mr. Enderby. "I would rather she
+stayed here and went as often as she pleased to see her early friends.
+It is evident they have a good influence upon her. Yet it would not be
+fair to let her grow up with their manners if she is to earn her bread
+among people of a higher class."
+
+So when Mrs. Enderby went next day to visit Hetty she was firm in her
+decision that the little girl should return to the Hall. She discovered
+Hetty busy sweeping up the cottage hearth in her gingham blouse. Hetty
+dropped her broom and hung her head.
+
+"I was pleased to get your letter, Hetty. I am glad you are sorry for
+what occurred."
+
+"I am sorry," said the little girl looking up frankly. "I am very sorry
+while I am here. But I might not be so sorry up at the Hall. The
+sorryness went away when I saw Lucy. Afterwards it came back when Mrs.
+Kane came in."
+
+"And that is why you want to stay here? Because Mrs. Kane makes you feel
+good? It is an excellent reason; but why can you not learn to be good at
+the Hall too? What has Mrs. Kane done to make you good?"
+
+"Oh! she loves me, for one thing," said Hetty; "and then she makes me
+pray to God. I never heard about God at Mrs. Rushton's; and Miss Davis
+always told me I made him angry. Mrs. Kane's God is so kind. I would
+like to make him fond of me."
+
+"You have a strange startling way of saying things, Hetty. You must try
+and be more like other children. Mrs. Kane's God is mine, and yours, and
+every one's, and we must all try to please him. But if you like her way
+of speaking of him you can come here as often as you please and talk to
+Mrs. Kane."
+
+"Then I must go back to the Hall?" said Hetty.
+
+"I am sorry you look on it as a hardship, Hetty. Mr. Enderby and I think
+it will be more for your good than staying here."
+
+"I am only afraid of being bad," said Hetty simply.
+
+"Oh! come, you will say your prayers and learn to be a good child," said
+Mrs. Enderby cheerfully; and then she went away, having settled the
+matter. She was more than ever convinced that Hetty's was a curious and
+troublesome nature; but she had not sounded the depths of feeling in the
+child, nor did she guess how ardently she desired to be good and worthy
+of love, how painfully she dreaded a relapse into the old state of pride
+and wilfulness which seemed to shut her out from the sympathies of
+others.
+
+After Mrs. Enderby was gone, Hetty sat for a long time with her chin in
+her little hand looking out of the cottage door, and seeing nothing but
+her own trouble. How was she to try and be like other children? Could
+she ever learn to be like Phyllis, always cold and well-behaved, and
+never the least hot about anything; or could she grow quiet and sweet
+and so easily silenced as Nell? How was she to hinder her tongue from
+saying out things just in the words that came to her? She wished she
+could say things differently, for people so seldom seemed to understand
+what she meant. Tears began to drip down her cheeks as she thought of
+returning to her corner in the stately Hall, where she felt so chilled
+and lonely, of sitting no more at the snug homely hearth where there was
+always a spark of love burning for her.
+
+As she wiped her eyes a gleam of early spring sunshine struck upon an
+old beech-tree at the lower end of the garden, and turned all its young
+green into gold. The glorified bough waved like a banner in the breeze,
+and seemed to bring some beautiful message to Hetty which she could not
+quite catch. The charm of colour fascinated her eye, the graceful
+movement had a meaning for her. Springing up from her despondent
+attitude she leaned from the doorway, and felt a flush of joy glow in
+her heavy little heart. The same thrill of delight that had enraptured
+her when, as a babe not higher than the flag leaves, she stretched her
+hands towards the yellow lilies, pierced her now, but with a stronger,
+more conscious joy.
+
+When Mrs. Kane returned she found her ready to take a more hopeful view
+of the future that was at hand.
+
+"I have got to go," she said; "and I am going. But I may come to you
+when I like. And when the pride gets bad I will always come."
+
+Mrs. Kane promised to keep Scamp for her own, and so Hetty could see all
+her friends at once when she visited the cottage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A TRICK ON THE GOVERNESS.
+
+
+Two years passed over Hetty's head, during which she had plenty of
+storms and struggles, with times of peace coming in between. There were
+days when, but for Mrs. Kane's good advice, she would have run away to
+escape from her trials; and yet she had known some happy hours too, and
+had gained many a little victory over her temper and her pride. The
+pleasantest days had been those when Mark Enderby, brother of Phyllis
+and Nell, was at home for his holidays, for he always took Hetty's part,
+not in an uncertain way like Nell's, but boldly and openly, and often
+with the most successful results. He was the only boy Hetty had ever
+known, and she thought him delightful; though like most boys he would be
+a little rough sometimes, and would expect her to be able to do all
+that he could do, and to understand all that he talked about. He
+sometimes, indeed, got her into trouble; but Hetty did not grudge any
+little pain he cost her in return for the protection which he often so
+frankly afforded her.
+
+Not that anyone meant to be unkind to her. Mr. and Mrs. Enderby
+continued to take a friendly interest in everything that concerned her,
+though strictly following their well-meant plan of not showing her any
+particular personal affection. "We must not bring her up in a hothouse,"
+they said, "only to put her out in the cold afterwards." In this they
+thought themselves exceptionally wise people; and who shall say whether
+they were or not? It suited Phyllis admirably to follow in the footsteps
+of her father and mother; but what was merely prudence on the part of
+her elder benefactors often appeared something much more unamiable when
+practised towards Hetty by a girl not many years her senior. Miss Davis,
+who was a rigid disciplinarian and trusted as such by her employers,
+thought chiefly of breaking down the pride and temper of the child, and
+of bending her character so as to fit her for the hard life that was
+before her; a life whose difficulties and trials had been bitterly
+experienced, and not yet all conquered or outlived by the conscientious
+governess herself. Nellie, who was Hetty's only comfort in the great
+and, as it seemed to her, unfriendly house, too often showed her
+sympathy in a covert way which made Hetty feel she was half ashamed of
+her affection; and this deprived such tenderness of the value it would
+otherwise have had.
+
+Hetty, now above eleven years old, was very much grown and altered. Her
+once short curly hair was long, and tied back from her face with a plain
+black ribbon. Her face was singularly intelligent, her voice clear and
+quick, her eyes often much too mournful for the eyes of a child, but
+sometimes flashing with fun, as, for instance, when Mark engaged her in
+some piece of drollery. Then the old spirit that she used to display
+when she performed her little mimicries for Mrs. Rushton's amusement
+would spring up in her again, and she would take great delight in seeing
+Mark roll about with laughing, and hearing him declare that she was the
+jolliest girl in the world.
+
+One Easter time, just two years after Hetty's return to the Hall, when
+Mark was at home for his holidays, he proposed to Hetty to play a trick
+on Miss Davis. Hetty's eyes danced at the thought of a trick of any
+kind. She did not have much fun as a rule, and Mark's tricks were always
+so funny.
+
+"It isn't to be a bad trick, I hope," she said, however.
+
+"Oh! no, not at all. Only to dress up and pretend to be people from her
+own part of the world coming to see her and to bring her news. We will
+be an old couple who know her friends, and are passing this way."
+
+"She will find us out."
+
+"No; we must come in the twilight and go away very soon. She will be so
+astounded by what I shall tell her that she won't think about us at
+all."
+
+"What will you tell her?"
+
+"Oh! news about her old uncle. She has a rich uncle and she expects to
+be his heiress. Somebody told me of it. I will tell her he is married,
+and you will see what a state she will be in."
+
+"I don't believe Miss Davis wants anybody's money," said Hetty; "she
+works hard for herself, and I think she supports her mother. _I_ shall
+have to work some day as she does, and I mean to copy her. Only I shall
+have no mother to support," said Hetty, swallowing a little sigh because
+Mark could not bear her to be sentimental.
+
+"Oh! well, we shall have some fun at all events," said Mark; "and don't
+you go spoiling it, proving that Miss Davis is a saint."
+
+"Where can we get clothes to dress up in?" asked Hetty.
+
+"Farmer Dawson's son is going to bring them to me, and you will find
+yours in your room just at dusk. Hurry them on fast and I shall be
+waiting in the passage."
+
+That evening two rather puny figures of an old man and woman were shown
+up into the school-room where Miss Davis was sitting alone, looking
+into the fire and thinking of her distant home. Hetty was supposed to be
+arranging her wardrobe in her own room, and the other girls were with
+their mother. The governess was enjoying the treat of an hour of leisure
+alone, when she was informed that Mr. and Mrs. Crawford from Oldtown,
+Sheepshire, wished to see her.
+
+"Show them up," said Miss Davis, and waited in surprised expectation.
+"Who are they?" she thought; "I do not know the name. But any one from
+dear Sheepshire--ah, what a strange-looking pair!"
+
+They were odd-looking indeed. Mark was tall enough to dress up as a man,
+and he wore a rough greatcoat, and a white wig, and spectacles. Hetty
+had little gray curls, and gray eyebrows under a deep bonnet, and was
+wrapped in a cloak with many capes. In the uncertain light their
+disguise was complete.
+
+"I have not the pleasure--" began Miss Davis.
+
+"No, you don't know us," said Mark, "but your friends do, and we know
+all about you. We were passing this way and have brought you a message
+from your mother."
+
+"Indeed!" said Miss Davis, and her heart sank. A letter she had been
+expecting all the week had not arrived. Her mother was sick and poor.
+What dreadful thing had happened at home?
+
+"Oh, she is not worse than usual," put in Hetty, in the shrill piping
+tone which she chose to give to Mrs. Crawford. "Don't be alarmed."
+
+Miss Davis did not easily recover from her first shock of alarm. She
+remained quite pale, and Hetty wondered to see so much feeling in a
+person whom she had often thought to be almost a mere teaching-machine.
+
+"The news is about your uncle," went on Mark. "Perhaps you have not
+heard that he is married."
+
+"No, I had not heard," murmured Miss Davis; and she looked as if this
+indeed was a terrible blow to her. Hetty was immediately annoyed at her
+and disappointed in her. Was Mark right in his estimate of her
+character? Hetty had thought her a wonder of high-mindedness and
+independence of spirit, if very formal and cold. Was she now going to be
+proved mercenary and mean?
+
+"Your mother did not write to you about it, fearing it would be a
+disappointment to you."
+
+"My uncle has a right to do as he pleases," said Miss Davis, "and I hope
+he will be happy"; but her lips were trembling and she looked pained and
+anxious. "I thank you very much for your trouble in coming to tell me. I
+daresay my mother will write immediately."
+
+Now Mark was not satisfied with the result of his trick. He had hoped
+that Miss Davis would have got very angry, and have said some amusing
+things. Her quiet dignity disappointed him, and with an impulse of wild
+boyish mischief he resolved to try if he could not startle her.
+
+"I am sorry to say I have not told you everything," he blurted out
+suddenly. "I ought to prepare you for the worst, but I don't know how."
+
+"Speak, I beg of you," faltered Miss Davis.
+
+"Your uncle is dead, and has left all his fortune, every penny, to his
+wife."
+
+A look came over Miss Davis's face which the children could not
+understand.
+
+"My brother!" she said, "can you tell me what has become of my little
+brother?"
+
+"Run away," said Mark, who had not known till this moment that she had a
+brother.
+
+Miss Davis gasped and leaned her face forward on the table. The next
+moment they saw her slip away off her chair to the floor. She had
+fainted.
+
+Mark was greatly alarmed, and struck with sudden remorse. Hetty sprang
+up crying, "Oh, Mark, how could you?"
+
+"What are we to do?" said Mark in despair.
+
+"Here," said Hetty, "take away all this rubbish of clothes, and hide
+them." And she pulled off her disguise and flew to raise Miss Davis from
+the floor.
+
+"No, lay her flat," said Mark; "and here is some water, dash it on her
+well. I will come back in a few moments."
+
+He cast off his own disguise and vanished with his arms full of the
+articles he and Hetty had worn. When he returned he found Miss Davis
+beginning to breathe again, and Hetty crying over her.
+
+"Oh! Mark, I will never play a trick again as long as I live," whispered
+Hetty; "we were near killing her. How could we dare to meddle with her
+affairs?"
+
+"How was I to know she had a brother?" grumbled Mark under his breath.
+"And what has he to do with the joke of her uncle's marrying?"
+
+"And dying?" said Hetty. "But that's just it, you see, we don't know
+anything about it."
+
+"Children," murmured Miss Davis, "what has happened to me? Give me your
+hands, Mark, and help me to rise."
+
+They raised her up and laid her on the sofa.
+
+"What was the matter?" repeated Miss Davis, seeing the tears flowing
+down Hetty's cheeks.
+
+"Oh! two nasty old people came to see you and frightened you," said
+Mark, "and then they walked off, and Hetty and I found you on the
+floor."
+
+Hetty gave Mark a reproachful look, coloured deeply, and hung her head.
+Mark cast a warning glance at her over Miss Davis's shoulder. He did not
+want to be discovered.
+
+"Oh! I remember," moaned Miss Davis. "My poor mother!"
+
+Mark could not bear the unhappy tone of her voice, and turned and fled
+out of the room.
+
+"Don't believe any news those people brought you, Miss Davis," said
+Hetty. "I am sure they were impostors."
+
+She was longing to say, "Mark and I played a trick for fun," but did not
+dare until she had first spoken to Mark.
+
+"Why do you think so? Hetty, is it possible you are crying for me? I did
+not think you cared so much about me, my dear."
+
+"I am sorry, I am sorry," cried Hetty, bursting into a fresh fit of
+crying; "I did not know you had a little brother, Miss Davis."
+
+"I have, Hetty; next to my mother he is the dearest care of my life. I
+could not have told you this but for your tears. My mother and I are
+very poor, Hetty, and my uncle had lately taken my boy and promised to
+put him forward in the world. He is rather a wilful lad, my poor
+darling, and is very delicate besides. Now, it seems, by my uncle's
+marriage and death he has lost all the prospect he had in life. And
+worst of all he has run away. And my mother is so ill. It will kill
+her."
+
+Miss Davis bowed her pale worn face on her hands, and Hetty, young as
+she was, seemed to feel the whole meaning of this poor woman's life, her
+struggles to help others, her unselfish anxieties, her love of her
+mother and brother hidden away under a quiet, grave exterior. What a
+brave part she was playing in life, in spite of her prim looks and
+methodical ways. Hetty was completely carried away by the sight of her
+suffering, and could no longer contain her secret. She forgot Mark's
+warning looks, and his sovereign contempt, always freely expressed, for
+those who would blab; and she said in a low eager voice:
+
+"Oh, Miss Davis, I _must_ tell the truth. It was all a trick of me and
+Mark. He made it up out of his head, without really knowing anything
+about your people. Only for fun, you know."
+
+"What do you mean, Hetty?"
+
+"We were the old man and woman, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford. Indeed we were,
+and there are no such people. And your uncle is neither married nor
+dead. And your brother has not run away. And your mother will be all
+right; and do not grieve any more, dear Miss Davis."
+
+Hetty put her arms round the governess's neck as she spoke, and laughed
+and sobbed together. Miss Davis seemed quite stunned with the
+revelation.
+
+"Are you sure you are not dreaming, Hetty? I want a few moments to think
+it all over. None of these dreadful things have really happened! Well,
+my dear, I must first thank God."
+
+"Oh, Miss Davis, I wish you would beat me."
+
+"No, dear, I won't beat you. Only don't another time think it good fun
+to cut a poor governess to the heart. Perhaps you thought I had not much
+feeling in me."
+
+"Not very much," said Hetty. "I knew you were very good, and strong,
+and wise, and learned; but I did not know you could love people."
+
+"You know it now. For the future do not think that because people are
+colder in their manner than you are they are therefore heartless.
+Persons who lead the life that I lead, have to keep many feelings shut
+up within themselves, and to accustom themselves to do without
+sympathy."
+
+Hetty pondered over these words. She wanted to say that she thought it
+would do quite as well to show more feeling, and look for a little more
+sympathy. She was now sure that she could always have loved Miss Davis,
+had she only known her from the first to be so warm-hearted and so truly
+affectionate. But she did not know how to express herself and remained
+silent.
+
+"Miss Davis," she said presently; "must governesses always keep their
+hearts shut up, and try to look as if they loved nobody? You know I am
+going to be a governess some day, and that is why I ask."
+
+Miss Davis was startled. "Do I look as if I loved nobody?" she asked.
+
+"A little," said Hetty.
+
+"Then I must be wrong. It cannot be good to look as if one loved nobody.
+At the same time it _is_ very necessary to curb all one's feelings.
+Phyllis, for instance, would not respect me if she thought me what she
+would call sentimental. And even Nell would perhaps smile at me as a
+simpleton if she saw me looking for particular affection. Even you,
+Hetty--you who think so much about love!--could I manage you at all if I
+did not know how to look stern?"
+
+"You could," said Hetty; "you could manage me better by smiling at me;
+just try, Miss Davis. But oh, I forgot; I have got to be a governess
+too, and perhaps I had better be hardened up."
+
+Miss Davis was silent, thinking over Hetty's words. That this ardent
+child found her "hardened up" was an unpleasant surprise to her; but she
+was not above taking a hint even from one so young and faulty as Hetty.
+She would try to be warmer, brighter with this girl. And then she
+reflected sadly on the prospect before Hetty. With a nature like hers,
+how would she ever become sufficiently disciplined to be fit for the
+life of toil and self-repression that lay before her?
+
+The next day Hetty looked out anxiously for an opportunity of speaking
+privately to Mark.
+
+"I have something to say to you, Mark," she said; "I had to tell Miss
+Davis that we played the trick."
+
+"You had to tell her!" said Mark scornfully; "well, if ever I trust a
+tell-tale of a girl again. You are just as sneaky as Nell after all."
+
+"Nell is not sneaky; and you ought not to call me a tell-tale. You ran
+away and left me with all Miss Davis's trouble on my shoulders. I
+didn't want to tell; but it was better than having her suffer so
+dreadfully."
+
+"Oh, very well. You can make a friend of her. Go away and sit up prim
+like Phyllis. You shall have no more fun with me, I can tell you."
+
+A lump came in Hetty's throat. She knew Mark was in the wrong, and was
+very unkind besides; but still he had so often been good to her that she
+could not bear to quarrel with him.
+
+"I am very sorry," she said; "but I don't think you need be afraid that
+Miss Davis will complain to anyone about us."
+
+This made Mark more angry; for he did not like to hear the word "afraid"
+applied to himself; and yet his chief uneasiness had been lest the
+occurrence of last evening should come to the ears of his father, who
+had a great dislike for practical jokes.
+
+"Afraid? I am not afraid of anything, you little duffer. She can tell
+all about it to the whole house if she likes," he said, and turning on
+his heel went off whistling.
+
+Hetty was right in the guess she had made regarding Miss Davis, who did
+not say a word to anyone about the trick that had been played on her.
+She was too thankful to know that she had suffered from a false alarm,
+that her beloved brother was safe under the protection of the uncle who
+had promised to befriend him, and that her dear mother was spared the
+terrible anxiety that had seemed to have overtaken her; she was much too
+glad thinking of all this to feel disposed to be angry with anyone.
+Besides, this accident had brought to light a side of Hetty's character
+which she had hardly got a glimpse of before. The child had evinced a
+warmth of feeling towards herself which neither of her other two pupils
+had ever shown her, and this in forgetfulness of the somewhat hard
+demeanour with which she had been hitherto treated. The little girl was,
+it appeared, capable of knowing that certain things she did not like
+were yet for her good, and of respecting the persons who were to her
+rather a stern providence. Her extreme sorrow for giving pain was also
+to be noted, and the fact that she had realized the work that was before
+her in life. All these things sank deeply into Miss Davis's mind, and
+made her feel far more interested in Hetty than she had ever felt
+before.
+
+But Hetty did not know anything of all this. She saw Miss Davis precise
+and cold-looking as ever, going through the day's routine as if the
+events of that memorable evening had never happened; and she thought
+that everything was just as it had been before, except that Mark had
+quarrelled with her and would scarcely speak to her. She felt this a
+heavy trial, and but for occasional visits to Mrs. Kane and Scamp would
+have found it harder than she could bear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+HETTY'S CONSTANCY.
+
+
+"I hope Hetty is getting on better in the school-room now," said Mrs.
+Enderby to Phyllis one day; "I have not heard any complaints for some
+time."
+
+"I think she is doing pretty well, mother; at least she behaves better
+to Miss Davis. As for me, I have very little to do with her. I notice,
+however, that she has quarrelled with Mark. He and she used to be great
+friends, because she is such a romp and ready for any rough play. But
+now he does not speak to her."
+
+"That does not matter much," said Mrs. Enderby smiling; "she will be
+better with Miss Davis and you. You must continue to take an interest in
+the poor child, dear Phyllis. I wish she gave as little trouble as you
+do."
+
+Phyllis was one of those girls for whom mothers ought to be more uneasy
+than for the wilder and naughtier children who cause them perpetual
+annoyance. She was so proper in all her ways, and so well-behaved as
+never to seem in fault. Her reasons for everything she said and did were
+so ready and so plausible, that it required a rather clever and
+far-seeing person to detect the deep-rooted pride and self-complacency
+that lay beneath them. To manage all things quietly her own way, to be
+accounted wise and good, and greatly superior to ordinary girls of her
+age, was as the breath of life to Phyllis. To have to stand morally or
+actually in the corner with other naughty children was a humiliation she
+had unfortunately never experienced, but was one which would have done
+her a world of good. All those early storms of remorse, repentance,
+compunction, which do so much to prepare the ground for a growth of
+virtue in children's hearts, were an unknown experience to her. She
+believed in herself, and she expected others, young and old, to believe
+in her. Such characters, if not discovered and humbled in time, are
+likely to have a terrible future, and to grow up the unconscious enemies
+of their own happiness and that of the people who live around them.
+
+Mark kept up his indignation towards Hetty for a week. He did not grieve
+over the quarrel as she did, but he missed her sadly in his games.
+However, an accident soon occurred which made them friends again.
+
+Mark had had a piece of land given to him in a retired part of the
+grounds, and he was full of the project of making a garden of his own,
+according to his own particular fancy. His father was pleased to allow
+him to do this, being glad of anything that would occupy the restless
+lad while at home for his holidays.
+
+"I will draw all the beds geometrically myself," said Mark, "and make
+it quite different from anything you have ever seen. And then I will
+build a tea-house all of fir, and line it with cones, and it will have a
+delightful perfume."
+
+Then he said to himself that if Hetty had not turned out so badly he
+would have asked her to make tea very often in his nice house among his
+flowers. But, of course, he could not ask a tell-tale duffer of a girl to
+do anything for him.
+
+He set to work to plan his beds, and one afternoon was busy marking off
+spaces with wooden pegs and a long line of cord. After working some time
+he came to the end of his pegs, and was annoyed to find that he had not
+enough to finish the particular figure he was planning. He did not like
+to drop his line to go for more pegs, as he feared his work was not
+secure enough, and would fall astray if the string was not held taut
+till the end should be properly secured.
+
+Just as he looked around impatiently, not knowing what to do, he saw
+Hetty coming along the path above him, walking slowly and reading. She
+was very often reduced to the necessity of taking a story-book as
+companion of her leisure hours, now that Mark would have nothing to do
+with her. This afternoon Phyllis and Nell were out driving with their
+mother, and Miss Davis had seized the opportunity to write letters.
+Hetty was therefore thrown on her own resources and was roaming about
+with a book. She would have rushed away to Mrs. Kane's at once, but she
+knew that this was John Kane's dinner hour. But half an hour hence she
+would set off for the village, and have a nice long chat with her
+foster-mother.
+
+Hetty descended the winding path with her eyes on her book, and before
+she saw him, nearly stumbled against Mark.
+
+"Do you mean to walk over a fellow?" said Mark in an aggrieved tone.
+
+"Oh, Mark, I beg your pardon. I did not know you were here. Now," she
+added, looking round wistfully, "if you wouldn't be cross with me what a
+nice time we could have working at your garden together."
+
+"If you weren't disagreeable, I suppose you mean. Well, yes, we could.
+But you see we're not friends."
+
+"And you won't, won't be?" said Hetty anxiously.
+
+"Well, look here, if you hold this string for me a bit I'll think about
+it. My pegs are shaky until the string is fastened up tight, and I can't
+drop it, and I must go to the stable-yard for some more pegs. If you
+hold this string till I come back, perhaps I will forgive you."
+
+"Oh yes, I will hold it," said Hetty; and down went her book on the
+grass, and she took the cord and held it as Mark directed.
+
+"Be sure to keep steady till I come back," he said; "and you mustn't
+mind if I am kept a little while. I may have to look for Jack, who has
+the key of the storehouse where the pegs are kept."
+
+And off he went.
+
+When he got to the stable-yard he met a groom who was coming to look for
+him, saying that his father wanted him to go out riding. Mr. Enderby was
+already in the saddle, and Mark's pony was waiting beside him at the
+door. Mark, who loved a ride, especially in company with his father, at
+once vaulted on the pony's back and was soon trotting out of the gates,
+laughing and chatting with his papa. He had completely forgotten Hetty,
+and the pegs, and the cord that had to be held taut till he should come
+back.
+
+In the meantime Hetty was standing just where he had left her, looking
+in the direction from which he was to return. A quarter of an hour
+passed, and her finger and thumb, which held the string exactly as Mark
+had directed, were a little stiff. Another quarter passed, and lest the
+cord should relax she changed it from one hand to the other.
+
+"Jack must have gone out," she thought, "and Mark is waiting for him. I
+wish he would come back, for I do want to see Mrs. Kane."
+
+However, another quarter passed and Mark did not appear. Hetty was very
+cold, for it was damp wintry weather with a sharp wind, and one gets
+chilly standing perfectly still so long in the open air. She felt
+tempted to put down the string and go to look for Mark, but on
+reflection thought it would be disloyal to do so. He should not be
+disappointed in her again. Something extraordinary had happened to keep
+him away, but he should find her at her post when he came back. Then he
+would be sure to forgive her, and she would be happy again.
+
+Another half-hour passed and her toes were half-frozen, and her fingers
+and her little nose pinched and red. She wished she had put on her
+gloves before she took the cord in her hands. Now she could not drop it
+to put them on. The jacket she wore was not a very warm one. Oh, why did
+not Mark come back? It occurred to her that perhaps he might be playing
+a trick to punish her; but she could not believe he would be so cruel.
+Should she drop the string at last, and tell him afterwards that she had
+held it as long as she could endure the cold? No, she would go on
+holding it. He should see that she could bear something for his sake.
+
+Hetty had been about an hour shivering at her post when Mark, riding
+gaily along the road many miles from home, suddenly remembered Hetty and
+the cord. He felt greatly startled and shocked at his carelessness. "I
+ought to have sent Jack with the pegs to finish the work, and to tell
+her I was going to ride," he reflected; "but it can't be helped now. She
+will never be such a goose as to stay there long." And he felt more
+sorry thinking of how the string would be lying slack until his return
+than for treating Hetty so inconsiderately. Trying to put the whole
+thing out of his head he began to chatter to his father about something
+that had happened at school, and thought no more about the matter till
+he had returned home an hour later.
+
+Then he sprang from his pony and ran off to his garden to see if he
+could tighten up the string before it became quite dark night. Could he
+believe his eyes? There was Hetty holding the string as he had left her.
+
+"Do you mean to say you have been there ever since?" he said in utter
+amazement.
+
+"Yes," said Hetty, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. "You told
+me not to mind if you were kept a while. And I did not mind."
+
+"But do you know that I have been two hours away, and have had a long
+ride with father?" said Mark.
+
+"It seemed a long time," said Hetty; "but I did not know what you were
+doing. I promised to stay and I stayed."
+
+"Well, you were a precious goose," he said, taking the string out of her
+hand. "Nobody but a stupid of a girl would do such a thing."
+
+Hetty said nothing, but slapped her hands together, and tried to keep
+the tears of disappointment from coming into her eyes.
+
+"Here, hold the string a moment longer while I put this peg properly
+into the ground. Can't you catch it tight? Oh, your fingers are stiff.
+There, that will do for to-night Now, come home and get warm again."
+
+They walked up to the house together. Hetty was too cold, and tired, and
+hurt to speak again, and Mark was too much annoyed at his own
+carelessness, and what he called Hetty's stupidity, to be able to thank
+her, and offer to make friends with her. Hetty went up to her own room
+to take off her things, and when she came down to the school-room she
+found that the tea was over and she was in disgrace for staying out so
+long. Phyllis cast a disapproving glance at her as she entered.
+Punctuality was one of Phyllis's virtues. Miss Davis rebuked Hetty for
+staying out alone so late.
+
+"I must tell Mrs. Kane," she said, "not to keep you so late when you go
+to see her."
+
+Then Hetty was obliged to say that she had not been to see Mrs. Kane.
+
+"Where, then, can you have been for two hours all alone?"
+
+"I was all the time in the grounds," said Hetty.
+
+She had made up her mind that she would not "tell" this time of Mark,
+and the consciousness that she was in an awkward position made her
+colour up and look as if guilty of some fault she did not wish to own.
+Phyllis looked at her narrowly and glanced at Miss Davis, who had a
+pained expression on her face, but who said nothing more at the time,
+being willing to screen Hetty if she could.
+
+"Hetty, I am sure you have got cold," said Nell after some time; "you
+are all shivery-shuddery."
+
+"My head is aching," said Hetty; "I don't feel well."
+
+"I suppose you were sitting all the time reading a story-book," said
+Phyllis, "that would give you cold in weather like this."
+
+"No, I was not reading, at least not long," said Hetty.
+
+"But were you sitting?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Walking?"
+
+"No, not much."
+
+"My dear, you must not cross-question like that," said Miss Davis.
+"Perhaps Hetty will tell me by and by what she was doing."
+
+A frown gathered on Phyllis's fair brows and she turned coldly to her
+lesson book which she was studying for the next day. She could not bear
+even so slight a rebuke as this, but she knew how to reserve the
+expression of her displeasure to a fitting time. She herself believed
+that she bore an undeserved reproof with dignity, but some day in the
+future the governess would be made to suffer some petty annoyance or
+disappointment in atonement for her misconduct in finding fault with
+her pattern pupil. Hetty raised her eyes with a thankful glance at Miss
+Davis, who saw that they were full of tears. A sudden warmth kindled in
+Miss Davis's heart as she saw that Hetty trusted in her forbearance, and
+she said presently:
+
+"I think you had better go to bed now, Hetty. You look unwell; and bed
+is the best place for a cold."
+
+"May I go with her, and see that she is covered up warm?" said Nell.
+
+"Yes," said Miss Davis, "certainly." And the two little girls left the
+room together, Hetty squeezing Nell's hand in gratitude for her
+kindness.
+
+When they got up to Hetty's room Nell's curiosity could no longer
+restrain itself.
+
+"Oh, Hetty," she said, "will you tell me what you were doing? I can see
+it is a great secret. And I won't tell anybody."
+
+"Neither will I," said Hetty laughing; "but I was not hurting anyone,
+nor breaking the laws."
+
+"Now, you are making fun of me," said Nell; "it is too bad not to tell
+me. And Phyllis will be cool with me to-night for running after you."
+
+"Then why did you not stay in the school-room?" said Hetty sadly. "I
+don't want to make coolness between you and Phyllis."
+
+"I shouldn't mind Phyllis if you would let me have a secret with you. It
+is so nice to have a secret, and it is so hard to get one. Everybody
+knows all about everything."
+
+"I don't agree with you; I hate secrets," said Hetty. "This is not much
+of one, I think, but it is somebody else's affair, and I will not tell
+it."
+
+Having wrung so much as this from Hetty, Nell grew wildly excited over
+the matter, and was so annoyed at not having her curiosity gratified
+that she went away out of the room in a hurry without having seen
+whether Hetty was warm enough or not. On her return to the school-room
+she announced that Hetty could not tell anything about how she had
+passed the afternoon, because it was somebody else's secret.
+
+"Perhaps she has been bringing some village girl or boy into the
+grounds," said Phyllis quietly.
+
+"I will talk to her myself about this," said Miss Davis; "pray attend to
+your studies."
+
+Miss Davis on reflection thought Phyllis might be right, and that having
+made acquaintance with some young companion in Mrs. Kane's cottage,
+Hetty might have been induced to admit her or him to the grounds so as
+to give pleasure. She knew how strongly the child was influenced by her
+likings and lovings, and feared that this might be the case of Scamp
+over again, with the important difference that Hetty was now a girl in
+her twelfth year, and that her new favourite might prove to be a human
+being instead of a dog.
+
+The next day Hetty was seriously ill. She had caught a severe cold and
+lay tossing feverishly in her bed. Miss Davis came up to see her in the
+afternoon and sat at her bedside for half an hour.
+
+"Hetty," she said, "I fear you must have been very foolish yesterday,
+and that your cold is the consequence. Now that we are alone I expect
+you will tell me exactly all that you did."
+
+"I can't indeed, Miss Davis."
+
+"You disappoint me exceedingly. I had been thinking so much better of
+you; I conclude you were not alone yesterday."
+
+"Not all the time, but most of it."
+
+"Who was with you when you were not alone?"
+
+Hetty hesitated, and then said, "Mark."
+
+"But Mark was out riding with his father."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you were alone all that time."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And yet there is something behind that you will not tell. Hetty, I
+always thought you frank till now. Why are you making a mystery?"
+
+"I can't tell you, Miss Davis; I was not doing any harm."
+
+"How am I to believe that?" said Miss Davis.
+
+"Oh, my head!" moaned Hetty, as the pain seemed crushing it. She thought
+that if she were to die for it she would not tell that Mark had treated
+her badly.
+
+Miss Davis went away hurt and displeased, and Hetty was very much alone
+for several days, being too ill to leave her room, and too deeply in
+disgrace to be petted by anyone. She was very unhappy, and lay wondering
+how it was that with a strong desire to do right she seemed always going
+wrong. If she had dropped the string, gone away to see Mrs. Kane as she
+had been longing to do, and returned in good time to the school-room to
+tea, Mark would perhaps have been better pleased with her than he
+actually was. He had not guessed that she had meant to please him, to
+make up for telling Miss Davis that they two had played her a trick. He
+did not ask about her now she was ill, or notice that she was keeping
+silence and allowing herself to be misunderstood in order that he might
+not be blamed. If all were told he could not be much blamed, it was
+true, for what was a mere piece of forgetfulness. But that carelessness
+of his was a fault of which his father was very impatient, and which
+always brought on him a severe reprimand.
+
+"And I will not tell this time," said Hetty to herself, as her eyes
+feverishly danced after the spots on the wall-paper. "When I told
+before, it was to save Miss Davis from suffering, this time there is
+nobody to suffer but myself."
+
+In the meantime Mark was spending a few days with a school-fellow at a
+distance of some miles, and had gone away without hearing about Hetty's
+illness. As soon as he returned home he missed her, and learned that she
+was shut up in her room.
+
+He immediately went to inquire for her, and met Miss Davis on the
+stairs.
+
+"I'm sure I don't wonder she got a cold," he said, "but I never meant
+her to do it."
+
+"To do what?" asked Miss Davis.
+
+"Why, did she not tell you?"
+
+"I have not been able to get her to tell me what she was about that day
+for two hours alone in the grounds. She has not behaved well, I am sorry
+to say; she has been in disgrace as well as ill."
+
+"Then it was a jolly shame!" burst forth Mark. "I left her to hold a
+string for me, and I forgot all about her, and went away to ride. And
+she stood holding the string for two hours in the cold. And I called her
+a duffer for not running away and letting all my pegs go crooked in the
+ground. Oh, I say, Miss Davis, it makes a fellow feel awfully ashamed of
+himself."
+
+"So it ought," said Miss Davis, who now understood the whole thing. "She
+would not tell for fear of getting you blamed."
+
+"And I called her a tell-tale before," said Mark, "because she told you
+about the trick. I've been punishing her for weeks about that. Miss
+Davis, can't I go in and see her and beg her pardon?"
+
+"Certainly," said Miss Davis; "she is sitting at the fire, and her eyes
+are red with crying. Come in with me and we will try to make her happy
+again."
+
+"Why, Hetty, you do look miserable!" cried Mark, coming into the room
+and looking ruefully at her pale cheeks and the black shadows round her
+eyes. "And to think of you never telling after all I made you suffer!"
+
+"I wanted to show you that I am not a tell-tale, Mark; but oh, I am so
+glad you have come. I thought you were never going to be friends with me
+again."
+
+"I was away four days," said Mark; "and of course I thought you knew.
+But Hetty, you are a jolly queer girl I can tell you, and I can't half
+understand you. Think of anyone standing two hours to be pierced through
+and through with cold, rather than drop a fellow's string and run away!"
+
+Hetty looked at him wistfully, recognizing the truth that he never could
+understand the sort of feeling that led her into making, as he
+considered, such a fool of herself. Miss Davis gazed at her kindly and
+pityingly, thinking of how many hard blows she would get in the future,
+in return for acts like that which had so puzzled Mark. And she resolved
+that another time she would be slow in blaming any eccentric conduct in
+Hetty, and would wait till she could get at the motive which inspired
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE CHILDREN'S DANCE.
+
+
+One day during these Christmas holidays a lady came to visit at
+Wavertree Hall, bringing her two little girls. Phyllis and Nell had gone
+with Miss Davis to see some other young friends in the neighbourhood,
+and Hetty, who was spending one of her lonely afternoons in the
+school-room with her books and work, was sent for to take the little
+visitors for a walk in the grounds, while their mother had tea with Mrs.
+Enderby.
+
+Hetty was pleased at being wanted, and soon felt at home with the
+strange little girls, who at once took a great fancy to her. Seeing she
+could give pleasure her spirits rose high, and she became exceedingly
+merry, and said some very amusing things.
+
+"I think," said Edith, the elder of the young visitors, "that you must
+be the girl who told such funny stories one evening when mamma dined
+here. She said it was as good as going to the theatre."
+
+"That was a long time ago," said Hetty; "I am not funny now. At least,
+very seldom."
+
+"I think you are funny to-day," said Grace, the second sister; "I wish
+you would come to our house and act for us, as you did then."
+
+"I don't go to houses," said Hetty, shaking her head; "I belonged to
+Mrs. Rushton then, and she meant me to be a lady. But now she is dead,
+and it is settled that I am not to be a lady when I am grown up. I am
+only to be a governess, and work for myself."
+
+"But governesses are ladies," said Edith; "a dear friend of ours is a
+governess, and there never was a nicer lady."
+
+"Oh, I know," said Hetty; "Miss Davis is quite the same. But I mean, I
+am not to be the kind of lady that goes out to parties."
+
+"Well, I will try and get you leave to come to our party," said Edith.
+"We are going to have one before the holidays are over."
+
+"I don't think you will get leave from Mrs. Enderby," said Hetty; "and
+then I have no frock."
+
+"They must get you a frock somewhere," said Grace; "I could send you one
+of mine."
+
+"That would give offence, I am sure," said Hetty smiling. "It is not for
+the trouble of getting the frock that Mrs. Enderby would keep me from
+going. She does not wish me to get accustomed to such things."
+
+"Then she is horrid," cried Edith; "making you just like Cinderella."
+
+"No, no," said Hetty, "you must not say that. Cinderella was a daughter
+of the house, and I am nobody's child. That is what the village people
+say. And only think if they had sent me to a charity school!"
+
+Edith and Grace gazed at her gravely. Hetty stood with her hands behind
+her back, looking them in the eyes as she stated her own case.
+
+"And you have nobody belonging to you, really, in the whole world?" said
+Edith.
+
+"Nobody," said Hetty, "and nothing. At least nothing but a tiny linen
+chemise."
+
+"Did you drop down out of the clouds in that?" asked Grace with widening
+eyes.
+
+"No," said Hetty laughing; "but I came out of the sea in it. I was
+washed up as a baby on the Long Sands. There were great storms at the
+time and a great many shipwrecks. And nobody ever asked about me. They
+must have been all drowned. John Kane, one of Mr Enderby's carters,
+picked me up. So you see I am not the kind of girl to be going out to
+parties."
+
+"You will have to be very learned if you are going to be a governess,"
+said Grace; "I suppose you are always studying."
+
+"I work pretty hard at my books," said Hetty; "but I am not clever. And
+how I am ever to be as well informed as Miss Davis I don't know. Some
+things I remember quite well, and other things I am always forgetting. I
+am sure if I ever get any pupils they will laugh at me. I wish I could
+live in a little cottage in the fields, and work in a garden and sell
+my flowers."
+
+"I should always come and buy from you," said Grace; "what kind of
+flowers would you keep?"
+
+"Oh, roses," said Hetty; "roses and violets. When I was in London I saw
+people selling them in the streets. I would send them to London and get
+money back."
+
+"I think I will come and live with you," said Grace eagerly.
+
+"Grace, don't be a goose," saith Edith; "Hetty has not got a cottage,
+and she is going to be a governess."
+
+"Yes," sighed Hetty; "but I shall never remember my dates."
+
+A few days after this conversation occurred, an invitation to a
+children's party came from Edith and Grace to all the children at
+Wavertree Hall, including Hetty Gray. Mrs. Enderby did not wish Hetty to
+know that she had been invited, but Nell whispered the news to her.
+
+"Mamma and Phyllis think you ought not to go," said Nell; "but Mark and
+I intend to fight for you. Mark says he was so nasty to you lately that
+he wants to make up."
+
+Hetty's eyes sparkled at the idea of having this pleasant variety.
+
+"I shall never be allowed to go," she said.
+
+"Oh, if it is only a frock, you can have one of mine," said Nell; "I
+got a new one for the last party, and my one before is not so bad."
+
+"It isn't the frock, I am sure," said Hetty; "it is because I am not to
+be a lady. At least," she added, remembering Edith's rebuke, "I am not
+to be a party-lady, not a dancing-and-dressing-lady. I am only to be a
+book-lady, a penwiper-lady, a needle-and-thread-lady, you know, Nell."
+
+"Oh, Hetty! a penwiper-lady!"
+
+"Yes, haven't you seen them at bazaars?" said Hetty, screwing up her
+little nose to keep from laughing.
+
+"I never know whether you are in earnest when you begin like that," said
+Nell pouting; "I suppose you don't want to come with us."
+
+However, when Hetty heard that she had really got leave to go "for this
+once, because Edith and Grace had made such a point of it," there was no
+mistake about her gladness to join in the fun.
+
+"How will you ever keep me at home after this?" she said, as Phyllis and
+Nell stood surveying her dressed in one of their cast-off frocks, of a
+rose-coloured tint which suited her brunette complexion. "I shall be
+getting into your pockets the next time, and tumbling out in the
+ball-room with your pocket-handkerchief."
+
+"No one wants to keep you at home, except for your own good," said
+Phyllis with an air of wisdom.
+
+"Never mind, Phyllis, it won't be into your pocket that I shall creep,"
+said Hetty gaily.
+
+Phyllis did not feel like herself that evening, and was dissatisfied
+about she knew not what. She could not admit to herself that she was
+displeased because another was to enjoy a treat, even though she thought
+she had a right to her belief that it would have been better if Hetty
+had been made to stay at home. "Of course, as mother consents, it is all
+right," she had said; but still she did not feel as much enjoyment as
+usual in dressing for the party. Half suspecting the cause of this, and
+willing to restore her good opinion of her own virtue, she brought a
+pretty fan to Hetty and offered to lend it to her. Hetty took it with a
+look and exclamation of thanks; but Phyllis thought she hardly expressed
+her gratitude with sufficient humbleness. However, Phyllis had now
+soothed away that faint doubt in her own mind as to her own kindness and
+generosity, and took no further notice of her unwelcome companion.
+
+Arrived at the ball, Hetty was warmly received by Edith and Grace, and
+was soon in a whirl of delightful excitement. She had "as many partners
+as she could use," as a tiny girl once expressed it, and she was not,
+like Cinderella, afraid that her frock would turn to rags, or anxious to
+run home before the other dancers. Everybody was very kind to her, and
+if anyone said, "That is the little girl whom Mr. Enderby is bringing
+up for charity," Hetty did not hear it, and so did not care.
+
+"Oh, Hetty, you do look so nice!" said Nell, dancing up to her. "A
+gentleman over there asked me if you were my sister. And I did not tell
+him you were going to be a governess."
+
+"You might have told him," said Hetty. "I don't care. I have been
+speaking to such a nice governess. She is here in care of some little
+children. I think she is the prettiest lady in the room; and she looks
+quite happy. I wish I could turn out something like her. Only I shall
+never remember the dates."
+
+Hetty sighed, and the next minute was whirled away into the dance again.
+
+Now Phyllis had told herself over and over again in the course of the
+evening that she was very pleased poor Hetty should be enjoying the
+pleasure of this party, always adding a reflection, however, that she
+hoped she might not be spoiled by so foolish an indulgence. "If I were
+going to be a governess," thought she, "I should try to fit myself for
+the position. Of course it is father's and mother's affair, but when one
+has a little brains one can't help thinking, I believe if I were in
+mother's position I should be wiser; but then, of course, I cannot have
+any things or people to manage till I am grown up. It is the duty of a
+girl to do what she is told; afterwards people will have to do what she
+tells them. When the time comes for me to be a mistress I shall take
+good care that everybody does what is right."
+
+These reflections occurred to Phyllis while she was sitting out a dance
+for which Hetty had got a partner.
+
+Soon afterwards, while the breathless flock of young dancers were
+fanning themselves on the sofas, the lady of the house requested Hetty
+to recite or act something to amuse the company.
+
+At this proposal Hetty was startled and dismayed. It was a very long
+time since she had done anything of the kind, except for the amusement
+of Mark and Nell, and she had forgotten all the old stories and
+characters that used to be found so entertaining by grown people. She
+felt a shyness amounting to terror at being obliged to come forward and
+perform before this company; and, besides, she was very sure that Mrs.
+Enderby would disapprove of her doing so. She therefore begged earnestly
+to be excused, and retreated into a corner. The lady of the house
+desisted for a time from her persuasions, but after another dance was
+finished she renewed her request. Hetty's distress increased, but she
+felt quite unable to explain to her hostess the reasons why it was
+impossible she could comply with her wishes. She could only repeat:
+
+"I forget how to do it; indeed I do. And Mrs. Enderby does not like it."
+
+"Mrs. Enderby would like you to please me," said the hostess. "And I
+cannot think you forget. My daughters tell me you were most amusing last
+week when they saw you."
+
+"Was I?" said Hetty, dismayed. "But that was in the garden and came by
+accident. I could not do anything before all this crowd."
+
+"Well, if you were a shy child I could understand," said the lady; "but
+you know I heard you long ago when you were much younger. If you were
+not shy then you cannot be so now."
+
+Hetty could not explain that it was just because she was older now that
+she was shy. Long ago she had been too small to realize the position she
+was placed in. She felt ready to weep at being found so disobliging, yet
+when she thought of the performance required of her, her tongue clove to
+her mouth with fright.
+
+The hostess now crossed the room to Phyllis, who had been watching what
+had passed between her and Hetty from a distance.
+
+"I have been trying to persuade little Miss Gray to recite for us, or to
+do some of her amusing characters, but she has all sorts of reasons why
+she cannot oblige me. Is she always so obstinate?"
+
+Phyllis hesitated.
+
+"I think she has a pretty strong will of her own," she said. "I am
+afraid she will not yield."
+
+"Well, my dear, you know her better than I do, and it is nice of you not
+to be too ready to blame her. But I like little girls who do as their
+elders bid them. And I confess I expected to find her agreeable when I
+invited her here this evening."
+
+Now if Phyllis had been as generous as she would have liked to believe
+herself she would have said, "I know my mother does not approve of
+Hetty's performances, and Hetty knows it too. Perhaps this is why she
+refuses." But Phyllis, quite unconsciously to herself, was pleased to
+hear Hetty blamed, and was willing to think that she ought to have put
+all her scruples aside in order to oblige Mrs. Enderby's friend. While
+she considered about what it would be pretty to say, her hostess went
+on:
+
+"I suppose she is a little conceited and spoiled. She is certainly
+exceedingly pretty and clever."
+
+It was much more difficult now for Phyllis to make her amiable speech;
+yet she had not the least idea that she was a jealous or an envious
+girl. She always felt so good, and everybody said she was so. Jealous
+people are always making disturbance. Therefore it was quite impossible
+that Phyllis could be jealous.
+
+"I will go and speak to her," she said to the lady of the house, and
+crossed the room to where Hetty sat, looking unhappy.
+
+"Hetty," said Phyllis, "I think you ought to do as you are asked. It was
+exceedingly kind of Mrs. Cartwright to invite you here. Of course she
+expected you to be obliging."
+
+"You mean that she asked me, thinking I would amuse the company?" said
+Hetty quickly. "Then I am very sorry you have told me so, Phyllis, for I
+should never have guessed it. And now I shall feel miserable till I get
+away."
+
+"Can't you be agreeable?"
+
+"No, I can't. Just think of trying it yourself."
+
+"Of course it would not be suitable for me," said Phyllis. "Our
+positions are different. However, if you choose to be ungrateful you
+must."
+
+And she walked away, leaving Hetty sitting alone reflecting sadly on her
+words. So after all it was not kindness and liking for her that had made
+these people include her in their invitation. It was only the desire to
+have their party made more amusing by her performance. She wished she
+could do what was required of her, so that she need owe them nothing.
+But she could not; and how hateful she must seem.
+
+All her pleasure was over now, and she was glad when the moment came to
+get away. Her silence was not noticed during the drive home, for every
+one else was too sleepy to talk. But Hetty was too unhappy to be sleepy.
+
+The next morning Miss Davis asked at breakfast if the party had been
+enjoyable.
+
+"It was all very nice," said Phyllis, "until towards the end, when Hetty
+put on fine airs and refused to be obliging. After that we all felt
+uncomfortable."
+
+"That is not true, Miss Davis," said Hetty bluntly.
+
+Her temper had suddenly got the better of her.
+
+Phyllis's blue eyes contracted, and her lip curled.
+
+"Please send her out of the room, Miss Davis," she said.
+
+"Hetty, I am sorry for this," said Miss Davis, "I could not have
+believed you would speak so rudely."
+
+"You have not heard the story, Miss Davis."
+
+"I have heard you put yourself very much in the wrong. Phyllis would not
+tell an untruth of you, I am sure."
+
+"She said I put on fine airs," said Hetty, trembling with indignation.
+"I did not put on airs. They wanted me to perform, and I could not do
+it. If I had done it Phyllis would have been the first to blame me. I
+remember how she scorned me for doing it long ago."
+
+"I hope you will make her apologize to me, Miss Davis," said Phyllis
+quietly. The more excited poor Hetty became, the quieter grew the other
+girl.
+
+"She is ungenerous," continued Hetty, striving valiantly to keep back
+her tears; "she knew her mother would not approve of my performing; and
+besides, I told her I was afraid. If I had done it she would have
+complained to Mrs. Enderby of my doing it."
+
+This passionate accusation hit Phyllis home. She knew it was true--so
+true that though she had arraigned Hetty before Miss Davis for the
+pleasure of humbling her, she yet had no intention of carrying the tale
+to her mother, fearing that Mrs. Enderby would say that Hetty had been
+right. Had Hetty made "a show of herself" by performing, Phyllis would
+perhaps have made a grievance of it to her parents. Stung for a moment
+with the consciousness that this was true, before she had had time to
+persuade herself of the contrary, Phyllis grew white with anger. The
+injury she could least forgive was a hurt to her self-complacency.
+
+"She must apologize, Miss Davis, or I will go to papa," said Phyllis,
+disdaining to glance at Hetty, but looking at her governess.
+
+Miss Davis was troubled.
+
+"This is all very painful," she said. "Hetty, you had better go to your
+room till you have recovered your composure. Whatever may have been your
+motives last night you have now put yourself in the wrong by speaking so
+rudely."
+
+Hetty flashed out of the room, and Phyllis, quiet and triumphant, turned
+to her lesson-books with a most virtuous expression upon her placid
+face.
+
+Hetty wept for an hour in her own room. Looking back on her conduct she
+could not see that she had been more to blame than Phyllis. Oh, how was
+it that Phyllis was always proved to be so good while she was always
+forced into the wrong? She remembered a prayer asking for meekness
+which Mrs. Kane had taught her, and she knelt by her bedside and said it
+aloud; and just then she heard Miss Davis calling to her to open the
+door.
+
+"My dear," said the governess, "I have come to tell you that you really
+must apologize to Phyllis. It was exceedingly rude of you to tell her so
+flatly that her words were untrue."
+
+Hetty flushed up to the roots of her hair and for a few moments could
+not speak. She had just been on her knees asking for strength from God
+to overcome her pride, and here was an opportunity for practising
+meekness. But it was dreadfully hard, thought Hetty.
+
+"I will try and do it, Miss Davis. But may I write a letter in my own
+way?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear. I am glad to find you so willing to acknowledge
+yourself in fault."
+
+Left alone to perform her task Hetty opened her desk and sat biting her
+pen. At last she wrote:
+
+
+"Dear Phyllis,--I am very sorry I said so rudely that you did not tell
+the truth. But oh, why did you not tell it, and then there need not have
+been any trouble?
+
+                     "HETTY."
+
+
+Hetty brought this note herself into the school-room, and in presence of
+Miss Davis handed it to Phyllis.
+
+"Do you call that an apology?" said Phyllis, handing the note to Miss
+Davis.
+
+"I don't think you have made things any better, Hetty," said Miss Davis.
+
+"I said what I could, Miss Davis. Phyllis ought to apologize to me now."
+
+Phyllis gave her a look of cold surprise, and took up a book.
+
+"Pray, Miss Davis, do not mind," said she over the edges of her book. "I
+expect nothing but insolence from Hetty Gray. Mother little knew what
+she was providing for us when she brought her here."
+
+Hetty turned wildly to the governess. "Miss Davis," she cried, "can I
+not go away somewhere, away from here? Is there not some place in the
+world where they would give a girl like me work to do? How can I go on
+living here, to be treated as Phyllis treats me?"
+
+Miss Davis took her by the hand and led her out of the room and upstairs
+to her own chamber. Having closed the door she sat down and talked to
+her.
+
+"Hetty," she said, "when you give way to your pride in passions like
+this you forget things. You asked me just now, is there any place where
+people would give work to a girl like you to do? I don't think there
+is--no place such as you could go to."
+
+"I would go anywhere," moaned Hetty.
+
+"Anywhere is nowhere," said Miss Davis. "Just look round you and see
+all that is given to you in this house. There is your comfortable bed to
+sleep in, you have your meals when you are hungry, you have good
+clothing, you have a warm fireside to sit at, you have the protection of
+an honourable home. Yet you would fling away all these advantages
+because of a few wounds to your pride. Phyllis is trying, I admit--I
+have to suffer from her at times myself--but you and I must bear with
+something for the sake of what we receive."
+
+Hetty raised her eyes and looked at Miss Davis's worn face and the line
+of pain that had come out sharply across her brow, and forgot herself
+for the moment, thinking of the governess's patient life.
+
+"But, Miss Davis, _you_ need not suffer from Phyllis; you are not like
+me. Any people would be glad to get you, who are so clever and so good.
+You could complain of her to her mother, and if she did not get better
+you could go away."
+
+"Should I be any more safe from annoyance in another family? Hetty, my
+dear, there are always thorns in the path of those who are poor and
+dependent on others, and our wisest course is to make the best of
+things. I might say to you, _you_ have no one to think of but yourself.
+For me, I have a mother to support, and I have to think of my dear young
+brother, who is not too wise for his own interests, and whose prospects
+are at the mercy of a rather capricious old uncle."
+
+"Oh that I had a mother and a brother to work for!" cried Hetty
+passionately.
+
+"Perhaps that would teach you wisdom, my dear. However, profit by my
+experience and be cheered up. Take no notice if Phyllis is unkind. It is
+better to be here, even with her unkindness, than straying about the
+world alone, meeting with such misfortunes as you never dreamed of."
+
+After Miss Davis had left her, Hetty sat a long time pondering over that
+lady's words. It seemed to her that the governess, good and patient as
+she was, had no motive for her conduct high enough to carry her through
+the trials of her life. It was certainly an excellent thing to be
+prudent for the sake of her mother and brother; to bear with present
+evils for fear of worse evils that might come. But yet--but yet, was
+there not a higher motive than all this for learning to be meek and
+humble of heart? Looking into her own proud and stubborn nature, the
+little girl assured herself that Miss Davis's motives would never be in
+themselves enough for her, Hetty--never sufficiently strong to crush the
+rebellion of self in her stormy young soul. Instinctively her thoughts
+flew to Mrs. Kane, and seizing her hat and cloak she flew out of the
+house, and away down the road to the labourer's cottage.
+
+Fortunately it was a good hour for her visit. John had gone out after
+his dinner. The cottage kitchen was tidied up, the fire shining, the two
+old straw arm-chairs drawn up by the hearth. Mrs. Kane was just
+screwing up her eyes, trying to thread a needle, when Hetty dashed in
+and flung her arms around her neck.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Kane, the pride has got so bad again; and I have been
+quarrelling with Phyllis and wanting to run away."
+
+"Run away!" said Mrs. Kane; "oh, no, dearie, never run away from your
+post."
+
+"What is my post?" said Hetty weeping; "I have no post. I am only a
+charity girl and in everybody's way. Phyllis hints it to me in every way
+she can, even when she does not say it outright. Oh, how can I have
+patience to grow up? Why does it take so long to get old?"
+
+Mrs. Kane sighed. "It doesn't take long to grow old, dear, once you are
+fairly in the tracks of the years. But it does take a while to grow up.
+And you must have patience, Hetty. There's nothing else for it but the
+patience and meekness of God."
+
+Hetty drew a long breath. All that was spiritual within her hung now on
+Mrs. Kane's words. The patience of God was such a different thing from
+the prudence of this world. That was the difference between Miss Davis
+and Mrs. Kane.
+
+"There was something beautiful you said one day," said Hetty in a
+whisper; "say it again. It was, 'Learn of me--'"
+
+"Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart," said Mrs. Kane. "That
+is the word you want, my darling, and it was said for such as you."
+
+Hetty's tears fell fast, but they were no longer angry tears. She was
+crying now with longing to be good.
+
+"There was something else," she said presently, when she could find her
+voice; "something that was spoken for me too."
+
+"Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,"
+said Mrs. Kane, stroking her head. And then Hetty cried more wildly,
+thinking with remorse of her own pride.
+
+"If He is for you, my dear, you needn't care who is against you,"
+continued Mrs. Kane; "take that into your heart and keep it there."
+
+After that they had a long talk about all Hetty's difficulties, and when
+at last the little girl left the cottage, it was with a lighter step
+than had brought her there. When she walked into the school-room just in
+time for tea the signs of woe were gone from her countenance, and she
+looked even brighter than usual. Without giving herself time to think,
+or to observe the looks of those in the room, she went straight up to
+Phyllis and said cheerfully:
+
+"Phyllis, I am sorry I gave you offence. I hope you will forget it and
+be friends with me"; and then she took her seat at the table as if
+nothing had happened.
+
+Miss Davis, who had been rather dreading her appearance, fearing a
+renewal of the quarrel, looked up at her and actually coloured all over
+her faded face with pleasure and surprise. Hetty had really taken her
+lessons to heart, and was going to be a wise and prudent girl after all.
+She little thought that a far higher spirit actuated the girl than had
+at all entered into her teachings.
+
+Phyllis glanced round with a triumphant air as if saying, "Now I am
+indeed proved in the right. She herself has acknowledged it!" and then
+she said gently:
+
+"I accept your apology, Hetty, and I will not say anything of the matter
+to my mother."
+
+"Is not Phyllis good," whispered Nell afterwards, "not to tell mamma?
+Because you know, you were very naughty to her, Hetty, and she is papa's
+daughter and the eldest."
+
+Nell's friendly speeches were sometimes hard to bear, as well as
+Phyllis's unfriendly ones. Hetty would have been glad if the whole
+affair could have been laid before Mrs. Enderby, and saw no reason to
+congratulate herself on Phyllis's silence to her mother as to the
+quarrel and its cause. But the others judged differently. Miss Davis was
+pleased that by her own tact she had been able to arrange matters
+without calling in the aid of Mrs. Enderby, who, she was aware, liked a
+governess to have judgment and decision sufficient to keep the mistress
+of the house out of school-room squabbles. Nell was delighted that
+there was to be no more "fuss." Phyllis above all was pleased, for now
+she felt no more necessity for questioning her own motives and conduct,
+no more danger of being told by her mother that Hetty had in the
+beginning been in the right, while she, by opposing her, had brought on
+the wrong which had followed.
+
+Falling back upon her own doctrine, that she must be right because her
+judgment told her so, Phyllis was coldly amiable to Hetty for the rest
+of the evening; while Hetty, having made her act of humility, rather
+suffered from a reaction of feeling, and had to struggle hard to keep
+the moral vantage-ground she had gained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A TRIAL OF PATIENCE.
+
+
+Two more years passed over Hetty's head. She had grown tall and looked
+old for her age, her large gray eyes were full of serious thought, her
+brow was grave, and the expression of her mouth touched with sadness.
+The haughtiness and mirth of her childhood were alike gone. Earnest
+desire to attain to a difficult end was the one force that moved her,
+and this had become visible in her every word and glance. She was
+painfully aware that the time was approaching when she must go forth to
+battle with the world for herself, and that on her own qualifications
+for fighting that battle her position in the world must depend. That she
+had not sufficient aptitude for learning out of books, or for
+remembering readily all that she gathered from them, she greatly feared.
+Her memory gave her back in pictures whatever had engaged her
+imagination; but much that was useful and necessary was wont to pass
+away out of her grasp. Thorough determination, close application, did
+not remove this difficulty, and she was warned by those around her that
+unless she could make better use for study of the three years yet before
+her than she had made of those that lay behind her, she could never be a
+teacher of a very high order. Of all that this failure meant, Hetty
+understood more clearly now than when she had wished to live with Mrs.
+Kane and be the village schoolmistress. Loving all that was beautiful
+and refined in life, she had learned to dread, from another motive than
+pride, the fate of being thrown upon a lower social level. And yet this
+was a fate which seemed now to stare her in the face.
+
+Mr. Enderby, who had of late taken a personal interest in her studies,
+examining her from time to time on various subjects, said to her:
+
+"My little girl, if you do not wake up and work harder I fear you will
+have to take an inferior position in life to that which I desired for
+you."
+
+Poor Hetty! Was she not wide awake? So wide awake that when he and all
+the household were asleep she lay staring her misfortune in the face.
+And how could she work harder than she did, weeping in secret over the
+dry facts that would not leave their mark upon her brain? Thus it was
+that life looked dreary to her, and her face was grave and pale. Phyllis
+and Nell, who were three and two years older than herself, had begun to
+talk of the joys which the magic age of eighteen had in store for them.
+They would leave off study and go forth into the enjoyment of their
+youth in a flattering world. Idleness, pleasure, happiness awaited them.
+No one could say they were not sufficiently well educated to take that
+graceful place in life which Providence had assigned to them; Hetty was
+rebuked for being less learned than she ought to be, because for her
+there was no graceful place prepared; only a difficult and narrow path
+leading away she knew not where.
+
+Of the difference between their position and hers she could not help
+thinking, but she had been so long accustomed to realize it that she did
+not dwell upon it much. Miss Davis was the person on whom her eyes were
+fixed as an image of what she ought to hope to become.
+
+To be exactly like Miss Davis. To look like her, think like her, be as
+well informed, as independent, as much respected; to teach as well,
+speak as wisely, be called an admirable woman who had fought her own way
+against poverty in the world, this was what Hetty had been assured by
+Mr. and Mrs. Enderby ought to be the object of her ambition and the end
+of all her hopes. And Hetty tried honestly to will as they willed for
+her good. But her face was not less sad on that account.
+
+Things were in this state when one day, a day never to be forgotten by
+her, Hetty was feeling more than usually unhappy. Only the evening
+before Mr. Enderby had examined her on several subjects, and had found
+her wanting. He had spoken to her with a little severity, and at the
+same time looked at her pityingly, and the girl had felt more miserable
+than can be told at having disappointed him. To-day she was left to
+spend a long afternoon by herself, as Miss Davis had taken Phyllis and
+Nell to visit some friends, and, though her morning's work ought to have
+been over, she still sat at her lessons, labouring diligently. At last
+becoming thoroughly tired she closed her book and raised her eyes
+wearily, when they fell on a jar of wild flowers which yesterday she had
+arranged and placed upon a bracket against the wall. It was spring, and
+in the jar was a cluster of pale wood-anemones with some sprays of
+bramble newly leafed. Hetty's eyes brightened at the sight of these
+flowers, and noted keenly every exquisite outline and delicate hue of
+the group. It seemed to her at the moment that she had never seen
+anything so beautiful before. Mechanically she took up her pencil and
+began to imitate on a piece of paper the waving line of the bramble
+wreath, and the graceful curves of the leaves. To her own great surprise
+something very like the bramble soon began to appear upon the paper. A
+sharp touch here, a little shadow there, and her drawing looked vigorous
+and true. After working in great excitement for some time Hetty got up
+and pinned her drawing to the wall, and stood some way off looking at
+it. Where had it come from? she asked herself. She had never learned to
+draw. She had not known that she could draw. Oh, how delightful it would
+be if she could reproduce the flowers as they grew! Not quite able to
+believe in the new power she had discovered in herself, she set again to
+work, altering the arrangement of the flowers in the jar, and taking a
+larger sheet of paper. It was only ruled exercise paper, but that did
+not seem to matter when the flowers blossomed all over it. The second
+drawing was even better than the first; and Hetty stood looking at it
+with flushed cheeks and throbbing heart, wondering what was this new
+rapture that had suddenly sprung up in her life.
+
+As her work was done, and the afternoon was all her own, she was able to
+give herself up to this unexpected delight, and spent many hours
+composing new groups of flowers, and arranging them in fanciful designs.
+When a maid brought up her solitary tea she lifted her flushed face and
+murmured, "Oh, can it be tea-time?" and then spread out all her
+drawings against the wall, and stared at them while she ate her bread
+and butter.
+
+She felt nervous at the thought of letting anybody see them, and locked
+them up in her desk before Miss Davis and the other girls came home.
+
+In earliest dawn of the next morning, however, she was out of bed and
+studying the drawings as she stood in her night-dress and with bare
+feet. Were they really good, she asked herself, or were her eyes
+bewitched; and would Mr. Enderby laugh at them if he saw them? Anguish
+seized on her at the thought, and she dressed herself with trembling
+hands. A new idea, striving in her mind, seemed to set all nature
+thrilling with a meaning it had never borne for her before. There had
+been great painters on the earth, as she knew full well, whose existence
+had been made beautiful and glorious by their genius; and there were
+artists living in the present day, small and great, who must surely be
+the happiest beings in the world. Their days were spent, not in
+drudgery, and lecturing, and primness, but in the study and reproduction
+of the beauty lying round them. Oh, if God should have intended her to
+be one of these!
+
+When the maids came to dust the school-room they found Hetty hard at
+work upon a new wreath of ivy which she had hastily snatched from the
+garden wall and hung against the curtain, and they thought she was
+doing some penance at Miss Davis's bidding. By eight o'clock the
+drawings were hid away, the flowers and wreaths disposed of in the jars,
+and Hetty was sitting at the table with a book in her hand. No one need
+know, she thought, of how she spent those early hours when everybody
+else was in bed. And so day after day she worked on steadily with her
+pencil, and there was a strange and unutterable hope in her heart, and a
+new light of happiness in her eyes.
+
+After some time she became more daring and attempted to bring colour
+into her designs. Using her school-room box of paints, the paints
+intended only for the drawing of maps, she placed washes of colour on
+her leaves and along her stems, making the whole composition more
+effective and complete. Day by day she improved on her first ideas, till
+she had stored up a collection of really beautiful sketches.
+
+With this new joy tingling through her young veins from morning till
+night, and from night till morning again, Hetty began to look so glad
+and bright that everyone remarked it. Miss Davis looked on approvingly,
+thinking that her own excellent discipline of the girl was having an
+effect she had scarcely dared to hope for. Nell was full of curiosity to
+know why Hetty had become so gay.
+
+"May I not have the liberty to be gay as well as you?" said Hetty
+laughing.
+
+"Of course; but then you are so suddenly changed. Miss Davis says it is
+only because you are growing good. But I think there must be something
+that is making you good."
+
+"I am glad to hear I am growing good. Something is making me very happy,
+but I cannot tell you what it is."
+
+Nell, always on the look-out for a secret, opened her eyes very wide,
+but could get no further satisfaction from Hetty, who only laughed at
+her appeals to be taken into confidence. That evening, however, she told
+Miss Davis that Hetty had admitted that there was _something_ that was
+making her so happy.
+
+"I knew she had a secret," said Nell mysteriously.
+
+"Then it is the secret of doing her duty," said Miss Davis. "She has
+made great improvement in every respect during the last few weeks."
+
+"I know she gets up earlier in the mornings than she used to do," said
+Nell, "and I don't think she is at her lessons all the time."
+
+"I hope she has not been making any more friends in the village," said
+Phyllis.
+
+"I am sorry such thoughts have come into your minds, children," said
+Miss Davis; "I see nothing amiss about Hetty. If she is happier than she
+used to be, we ought all to feel glad."
+
+Phyllis did not like the implied rebuke, and at once began to hope that
+she might be able to prove Miss Davis in the wrong. If Hetty could be
+found to have a secret, as Nell supposed, Phyllis decided that it ought
+to be found out. Her mother did not approve of children having secrets.
+Even if there was no harm in a thing in itself, there was a certain harm
+in making a mystery of it. So, having arranged her motive satisfactorily
+in her mind, Phyllis, feeling more virtuous than ever, resolved to
+observe what Hetty was about. The next morning she got up early and came
+down to the school-room an hour before her usual time. And there was
+Hetty working away at her drawing with a wreath of flowers pinned before
+her on the wall.
+
+Phyllis came behind her and was astonished to see what she had
+accomplished with her pencil; and Hetty started and coloured up to her
+hair, as if she had been caught in a fault.
+
+"Well, you are a strange girl," said Phyllis; "I did not know drawing
+was a sin, that you should make such a mystery over it."
+
+"I hope it is not a sin," said Hetty in a low voice. She felt grieved at
+having her efforts discovered in this way. She wished now that she had
+told Miss Davis all about it. Phyllis opened the piano and began to
+practise without having said one word of praise of Hetty's work; and the
+poor little artist felt her heart sink like lead. Perhaps the beauty
+that she saw in her designs existed only in her own foolish eyes.
+
+She worked on silently for about half an hour, and then put away her
+drawing materials and her flowers, and began to study her lessons for
+the day.
+
+"Of course you do not expect me to keep your secret from Miss Davis,"
+said Phyllis, looking over her shoulder. "I have been always taught to
+hate secrets, and my conscience will not allow me to encourage you in
+this."
+
+"Do exactly as you please," said Hetty; "I shall be quite satisfied to
+let Miss Davis know what I have been doing."
+
+"Then why did you not tell her before?" asked Phyllis.
+
+"I am not bound to explain that to you," said Hetty; but finding her
+temper was rising she added more gently, "I am willing to give an
+account of my conduct to any one who may be scandalized by it"; and
+then, fearing to trust herself further, she went out of the room.
+
+On the stairs she met Miss Davis, and stopped her, saying:
+
+"Phyllis has a complaint to make of me. I shall be back in the
+school-room presently after she has made it."
+
+"What is it about, my dear?"
+
+"She can tell you better than I can," said Hetty. "Please go down now,
+Miss Davis, and then we can have it over before breakfast."
+
+"Miss Davis, I find Nell was right in thinking that Hetty was doing
+something sly," began Phyllis, as the governess entered the school-room.
+
+"I am sorry to hear it. What can it be?"
+
+"Nothing very dreadful in itself perhaps. It is the secrecy that is so
+ugly, especially as there was no reason for it in the world."
+
+"What has Hetty done?" repeated Miss Davis.
+
+"Why, she has been getting up early in the mornings to draw flowers,"
+said Phyllis, unwillingly perceiving that the fault seemed a very small
+one when plainly described.
+
+"I did not know she could draw," said Miss Davis; "but, if she can, I
+see no harm in her doing it."
+
+"I think she ought to spend the time at the studies father is so anxious
+she should improve in," said Phyllis; "and I imagine she knows it too,
+or she would not have been so secret."
+
+"There is something in that, Phyllis; though I would rather you had not
+been so quick to perceive it."
+
+Phyllis curled her lip slightly. "Intelligence is given us that we may
+use it, I suppose," she said coldly; "but I have done my duty, and I
+have nothing more to say in the matter."
+
+Breakfast passed over without anything being said on the subject of the
+great discovery; but after the meal was finished, Miss Davis desired
+Hetty to fetch her her drawings that she might see them. Hetty went to
+her own room immediately, and returned bringing about a dozen drawings
+in a very primitive portfolio made of several newspapers gummed
+together.
+
+Miss Davis was no artist, but she felt that the designs were good, and
+remarkable as having been executed by a girl so untaught as Hetty. They
+increased her opinion of her pupil's abilities, yet she looked on them
+chiefly from the point of view Phyllis had suggested to her, and
+considered them in the light of follies upon which valuable time had
+been expended.
+
+"My dear," she said, "these are really very pretty, and I am sure they
+have given you a great deal of pleasure. But I cannot countenance your
+going on with this sort of employment. Think of how usefully you might
+have employed at your books the hours you have spent upon these trifles.
+I presume you were aware of this from the first yourself, and that this
+is why you have been so silent as to your new accomplishment."
+
+"No," said Hetty decidedly; "I did not feel that I was wasting time. On
+the contrary, my drawing gave me better courage to work at my lessons.
+The hours I spent were taken from my sleep. I was always at my books
+before Phyllis was at hers."
+
+"Phyllis is not to be made a rule for you, my dear. She has not the same
+necessity to exert her powers to the utmost. If you can do without part
+of your sleeping time, you ought to devote it to your books. And pray,
+if you did not think you were committing some fault, why did you say
+nothing to anyone of what you were about?"
+
+"I cannot tell you that, Miss Davis," said Hetty, her eyes filling with
+tears; "I mean I cannot explain it properly. I could not bring myself to
+show what I had done; but I had no idea of _wrongness_ about the
+matter."
+
+"Well, my dear, we will say no more about it. Take the drawings away;
+and in future work at your lessons every moment of your time. I will put
+you on your word of honour, Hetty, not to do any more of this kind of
+thing."
+
+
+"Do not ask me to give you such a promise, Miss Davis."
+
+"But Hetty, I must, and I do."
+
+"Then, Miss Davis, I will speak to Mr. Enderby."
+
+The governess and her two pupils gazed at Hetty in amazement.
+
+"I mean," Hetty went on, "that I hope he will think drawing a useful
+study for me. Will you allow me to speak to him this evening, Miss
+Davis?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear," said Miss Davis stiffly. "There is nothing to
+hinder you from consulting Mr. Enderby on any subject. I am sure he will
+be kind enough to give you his advice. Only I think I know what it will
+be beforehand; and I would rather you had shown more confidence in me."
+
+Hetty could not give her mind to her lessons that day, nor get rid of
+the feeling that she was in disgrace. When evening came, the hour when
+Mr. Enderby was usually to be found in his study, she asked Miss Davis's
+permission to go to him, and with her portfolio in her hand presented
+herself at his door.
+
+"Come in, Hetty," said Mr. Enderby; "what is this you have got to show
+me? Maps, plans, or what? Why, drawings!"
+
+Hetty's mouth grew dry, and her heart beat violently. The tone of his
+voice betrayed that the master of Wavertree had no more sympathy for
+art, or anything connected with it, than had Miss Davis. He was an
+accurate methodical man with a taste for mathematics, who believed in
+the power conferred by knowledge on man and woman; but who had little
+respect for those who concerned themselves with only the beauties and
+graces of life. Art was to him a trifle, and devotion to it a folly.
+Therefore Hetty with her trembling hopes was not likely to find favour
+at his hands.
+
+"My child, I am sure they are very pretty; but this sort of thing will
+not advance you in the world."
+
+"But, Mr. Enderby,--I have been thinking--artists get on as well as
+governesses. I do these more easily than I learn my dates. If I could
+only learn to be an artist."
+
+Mr. Enderby put his eye-glass to his eye, and gazed at her a little
+pityingly, a little severely, with a look that Hetty knew.
+
+"You would like to become an artist? Well, my girl, I must tell you to
+put that foolish idea out of your head. In the first place, you are not
+to imagine that because you can sketch a flower prettily, you have
+therefore a genius for painting; and such fancies are only calculated to
+distract your mind from the real business of your life. Besides,
+remember this, I have given, am giving, you a good education as a means
+of providing for you in life. Having bestowed one profession upon you
+already, I am not prepared to enter into the expense and inconvenience
+of a second. So run away like a sensible girl and stick to your books.
+You had better leave these drawings with me and think no more about
+them."
+
+Saying this, Mr. Enderby opened a drawer and locked up Hetty's designs
+within it; and, humbled and despairing, Hetty returned to the
+school-room.
+
+Her face of grief and her empty hands told sufficiently what the result
+of her errand had been. No remark was made by Miss Davis or the girls,
+though Nell, who thought the drawings wonderfully pretty, was impatient
+to know what her papa had said of them. She was too much in awe of Miss
+Davis to seek to have her curiosity gratified just then; and the evening
+study went on as if nothing had happened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+HETTY'S FUTURE IS PLANNED.
+
+
+This was the severest trial Hetty had ever encountered. Longing for
+special love, and delight in reproducing the beautiful, were part of one
+and the same impulse in her nature, and, crushed in the one, all her
+heart had gone forth in the other direction. Now both had been equally
+condemned in her as faults, and she fell back, as before, on the mere
+dull effort towards submission which had already carried her surely, if
+joylessly, over so many difficult years of her young life. She worked
+patiently at her books and fulfilled her duties; and she grew thinner
+and paler, and the old sad look became habitual to her lips and eyes.
+Another year passed, and as Phyllis and Nell approached nearer and
+nearer to the period for "coming out" they were more frequently absent
+from the school-room, and Hetty's days were more solitary than they used
+to be.
+
+All her mind was now fixed on the idea of fitting herself as soon as
+possible for some sort of post as governess. She knew she never could
+take such a position as that which Miss Davis filled, and had meekly
+admitted to herself that a humble situation must content her.
+
+She often wondered how it would be with her when the Enderby girls
+should no longer need Miss Davis; and decided according to her own
+judgment that she ought to be ready to seek a place for herself in the
+world as soon as the elder girls should have completed their studies.
+
+One evening she sat opposite to Miss Davis at the school-room fireside.
+Phyllis and Nell were in the drawing-room with their mother. Miss Davis
+was netting energetically, and Hetty, who had been studying busily,
+dropped her book and was gazing absently into the fire.
+
+"Hetty," said Miss Davis presently, "put away your book, I want to talk
+to you."
+
+Hetty obeyed, and looked at her governess expectantly.
+
+"My dear, you know very well that in another year I shall no longer be
+needed here. Phyllis and Nell will then be eighteen and seventeen, and
+their mother has decided that they shall come out at the same time. When
+I am gone there will no longer be any object in your staying in this
+house. And yet, as you will then be only sixteen, you will be young to
+begin your life among strangers."
+
+"Yes," said Hetty with a sinking of the heart; "but it is very good of
+you to think about me like this. Of course I shall have to go. I suppose
+I can get in somewhere as a nursery governess."
+
+"I have been thinking of something else. Of course it will remain for
+yourself to decide."
+
+Hetty's heart leaped. A wild idea crossed her mind that perhaps Miss
+Davis was going to suggest some way by which she might study to be an
+artist. Though she had never spoken on the subject since Mr. Enderby had
+pronounced sentence upon her hopes, still the dear dream of a possible
+beautiful future had always lain hidden somewhere in the most distant
+recesses of her brain. Now a sudden bright light shone into that
+darkened chamber. What delightful plan had Miss Davis been marking out
+for her?
+
+"I have made up my mind," said Miss Davis, "that instead of entering
+another family I will open a school in the town where I was born. My
+mother is getting old and she is lonely. If I succeed in my project I
+shall be able to live with her and continue to make an income at the
+same time."
+
+"How delightful!" murmured Hetty.
+
+Miss Davis smiled sadly. "I don't know about that. The plan will have
+its advantages, but there are many difficulties. However, I think it is
+worth a trial."
+
+Hetty said nothing, only wondered why Miss Davis was not more wildly
+glad at the thought of being always with her mother. She could not
+realize how long years of trial and disappointment had made it
+impossible to the governess to feel vivid anticipations of delight.
+
+"Now as regards you--" Hetty started. She had so completely thrown
+herself into Miss Davis's personality for the moment that she had
+entirely forgotten her own. "As regards you, I have been thinking that
+you might come with me and help me as an under teacher. In this way you
+might begin to be independent at the age of sixteen, and at the same
+time continue your own studies under my superintendence. Later, when you
+were more thoroughly fitted to be a governess, I could endeavour to
+place you out in the world."
+
+"Oh, how good of you to think of it! You are very, very kind!" said
+Hetty, though tears of disappointment rushed to her eyes. She crushed
+back the ungrateful feeling of dismay which pressed upon her at the
+thought of trying to teach in school. Her common-sense told her that
+nothing could be more advantageous for her interests than the plan Miss
+Davis had sketched for her. And she keenly appreciated the
+thoughtfulness for her welfare which had led the governess to include
+her in the scheme for her own future.
+
+"You would only have little children to teach at first," Miss Davis went
+on, "until you grow accustomed to the work and gain confidence in
+yourself. Of course this is only a suggestion which I make to you, that
+you may turn it over in your thoughts and be ready to make arrangements
+when the moment shall arrive. Perhaps by that time, however, Mr. Enderby
+will be able to provide you with a pleasanter home."
+
+"I do not think so," said Hetty. "He could recommend me only as a
+nursery governess, and if I were once in that position I could never
+have any further opportunity to improve. With you I can continue my
+studies."
+
+"This is precisely what I think," said Miss Davis, "and I am glad you
+take such a sensible view of the matter. However, we need not speak of
+this for a year to come."
+
+And so the conversation ended. Hetty longed to put her arms round Miss
+Davis's neck and thank her warmly for her kindness, but she felt
+instinctively that the governess would rather she abstained from all
+such demonstrations. It was only when she went up to bed that she
+allowed her thoughts to go back to the beautiful moment when she had
+fancied Miss Davis might have been thinking of making her an artist; and
+then she cried sadly as she thought of how foolish she had been in
+imagining even for a second that such a wild improbability had come
+true.
+
+However, Hetty awakened next morning with a wholesome feeling of
+satisfaction in her mind which she could not at first account for. In a
+few moments the conversation with Miss Davis rushed back upon her
+memory, and she knew that her contentment was due to the prospect of
+independence that had been put before her as so real and so near. Once
+installed under Miss Davis's roof, teaching in school and earning the
+bread she ate, neither servants nor companions could taunt her with
+being a charity girl any more, Mr. Enderby's fears for her would then be
+laid to rest, and the dread of disappointing him would be lifted off her
+mind. In Miss Davis's school she could live and work until she had
+acquired all that learning which to her was so hard to attain.
+
+With a sweet and brave, if not a glad, look on her face, Hetty came into
+the school-room that morning and found Phyllis and Nell chatting more
+gaily than usual at the fire.
+
+"Oh, Hetty," cried Nell, "you must hear our news! We are going to have
+such a delightful visitor in the house."
+
+"How you rush to conclusions, Nell!" said her sister. "You have not seen
+her yet, and you pronounce her delightful."
+
+"I know from what mamma told us," cried Nell. "She is pretty, amiable,
+clever--and ever so rich. Only think, Hetty--to be an heiress at
+twenty-one without anyone to keep you from doing just as you please! She
+has a country house in France, and a house in London, with a good old
+lady to take care of her, who does exactly what she bids her."
+
+"Mother did not say all that," said Phyllis.
+
+"Oh! but I gathered it all from what she did say."
+
+"Is she an orphan then?" asked Hetty.
+
+"She has neither father, nor mother, nor brother, nor sister. Now,
+Hetty, don't look as if that was a misfortune. It is natural for you to
+feel it, of course. But if you had houses, and horses, and carriages,
+and money, you would not think it so bad to be able to do what you
+liked."
+
+"Nell, I am shocked at you," said Miss Davis. "Would you give up your
+parents for such selfish advantages as you describe?"
+
+"Oh dear no!" cried Nell. "But if I never had had them, like Reine
+Gaythorne, and did not know anything about them, I daresay I could
+manage to amuse myself in the world."
+
+This was the first mention of the name of Reine Gaythorne in the
+Wavertree school-room, and it was certainly far from the last. Mrs.
+Enderby had met the young lady at a neighbouring country house, and had
+thought she would be a desirable acquaintance for her daughters. There
+was something interesting about the circumstances which had placed a
+young, beautiful, and wealthy girl alone, and her own mistress, in the
+world. Mr. and Mrs. Enderby had been greatly attracted by her, and had
+invited her to pay a visit at their house.
+
+In the course of a few days she arrived at the Hall, and then Phyllis
+and Nell were but little in the school-room.
+
+Hetty and Miss Davis went on as usual filling their quiet hours with
+work in their secluded corner of the house. A week passed away during
+the visit of the charming stranger, and Hetty had never once seen Miss
+Gaythorne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+REINE GAYTHORNE.
+
+
+Mrs. Enderby, her visitor, and her two daughters were sitting together
+one morning at needlework in the pretty morning-room looking out on an
+old walled garden, at Wavertree Hall. The distant ends of this old
+garden, draped with ivy and creepers, had been made into a tennis
+ground, a smooth trim green chamber lying behind the brilliant beds of
+flowers. Sitting near the window the figures of the girls looked
+charming against so picturesque a background.
+
+Miss Gaythorne's face, upraised to the light, was full of goodness,
+sweetness, and intelligence. A low broad brow, soft bright dark eyes, a
+rich brunette complexion, and red brown hair, so curly as to be gathered
+with difficulty into a knot at the back of her neck, were some of this
+girl's beauties which the eye could take in at a glance. A longer time
+was necessary to discern all the fine traits of character that were so
+artlessly expressed in turn by her speaking countenance.
+
+She wore a pretty dress of maroon cashmere and velvet, with delicate
+ruffles of rich old yellow lace. Her dainty little French shoes and fine
+gold ornaments were immensely admired by the two young girls beside her,
+who were not yet "out," and were accustomed to be clothed in the
+simplest attire. Not only her dress, but her accent, which was slightly
+foreign, her peculiarly winning smiles, her merry little laugh and
+graceful movements all seemed to the Enderbys more charming than could
+be described. Even Phyllis, usually so critical, was taken captive by
+their new friend, Reine.
+
+Miss Gaythorne was just finishing a piece of embroidery. She was very
+skilful with her needle, and her work was pronounced perfection by
+Phyllis and Nell. Mrs. Enderby joined her daughters in warm praise of
+the delicate production to which their visitor was just now putting the
+last touches.
+
+"I could so easily work one like it for you while I am here," said
+Reine, "if I had only a new design. I do not like repeating the same
+design."
+
+"I am sure Hetty could draw one for you," said Nell.
+
+"But I mean something original."
+
+"Oh! Hetty's drawings are original. She gathers a few flowers, and that
+is all she wants to begin with."
+
+"She must be very clever. Who is Hetty, if I may ask?"
+
+"Oh! Hetty is--Hetty Gray. She lives in this house. She is an orphan
+girl whom papa is educating to be a governess. She is always in the
+school-room with Miss Davis."
+
+"Can she draw so cleverly?"
+
+"Yes; it comes to her naturally. I will get a bundle of her drawings
+from papa to show you. He locked them up because she wanted to be an
+artist and he did not approve of it."
+
+"It is well she did not want to go on the stage," said Phyllis. "She
+used to be an extraordinary actress. However, she gave that up and took
+a dislike to it. Perhaps she has now taken a dislike to drawing, and
+will not care to make a design for Reine."
+
+"I am sure she will," said Nell. "Drawing is different from acting.
+People don't feel shy about drawing. I will go directly and ask her."
+
+"Perhaps you would let me see her drawings first," said Miss Gaythorne.
+
+"Certainly," said Nell; "papa is in his study, and I will go and fetch
+them."
+
+Mr. Enderby willingly surrendered the drawings to amuse and oblige the
+cherished guest, and Hetty's work was spread out on a table before
+Reine.
+
+"Why, these are beautiful," cried she; "and they are really done by a
+girl of fourteen who never learned to draw!"
+
+"Really," said Nell, enjoying Miss Gaythorne's surprise. "And now, may
+I ask Hetty to make you a design?"
+
+"If she would be so very good. If it would not give her too much
+trouble--"
+
+"Why, Hetty will be simply enchanted at the request. She is not allowed
+to draw, and of course the permission to do so will be delightful."
+
+"Not allowed to draw?" exclaimed Reine in astonishment.
+
+"Nell, how strangely you put things!" said Phyllis. "Father warned her
+not to squander her time in drawing, while she has so much need to
+study."
+
+Nell shrugged her shoulders. "Put it as you like, Phyllis," she said;
+"Hetty is a born artist, and she is going to be thrust into the harness
+of a governess."
+
+"It is well neither father nor mother is in the room," said Phyllis.
+"They would be much grieved to hear you make such a speech. I don't know
+where you get such ideas."
+
+"I don't know," said Nell; "they come to me sometimes."
+
+Reine listened in silence while she studied the drawings more closely.
+She was something of an artist herself, and had a cultivated taste; and
+a keen interest in the orphan girl who had a talent like this, and could
+not be allowed to draw, was springing up within her.
+
+Nell soon danced off to tell Hetty what was required of her.
+
+"Miss Gaythorne wants you to make a design for her, of the size and
+style of this, and you can use any flowers or foliage you please. Mother
+hopes Miss Davis will allow you time to do it."
+
+Hetty felt a rush of delight, which made the colour mount to her
+forehead.
+
+"Thank you, dear Nell," she said; "I know it is you who have got me this
+piece of good fortune. I shall have some delicious hours over the work."
+
+"Now, mind you make it beautiful," cried Nell; "for I have staked my
+reputation on you!"
+
+Hetty thought she had never been so happy in her life before, as she
+went out to pick and choose among the flowers, looking for a theme for
+her composition. At last she satisfied herself, and came back to the
+school-room, and went to work.
+
+Miss Davis, who had been much pleased with her of late, looked on with
+approval. She thought the girl had fairly earned a holiday and a treat.
+
+Hetty was more nervous over this drawing than she had been over any of
+the others. With them she had been only working to please herself, and
+of her own free will; but now it seemed as if the eyes of the world were
+upon every line she drew. She spoiled several beginnings; and at last,
+flushed and feverish, had to put away the work till to-morrow.
+
+"Drawing seems to be not all unmixed happiness any more than dates,"
+said Miss Davis, smiling at her anxious face. "Come now and have some
+tea, or you will get a headache."
+
+The next day Hetty went to work again, and succeeded at last in
+producing a striking and beautiful design. She was far from satisfied
+with it herself, and said to Nell, "I fear your friend will not think it
+good enough, but it is the best I can do."
+
+"I think it is lovely," said Nell; "and what trouble you have taken with
+it! She will be hard to please if she does not like it."
+
+And then Nell fled away with it, and Hetty turned to her books again
+with a happy feeling at her heart. It seemed to her that she had never
+before had an opportunity of performing any voluntary service for those
+who had been so generous towards her, but now she had been able to do
+something which would really give pleasure to the guest in their house.
+And then she wished she could see that charming Miss Gaythorne, who was
+said to be fond of drawing, and to know a great deal about it. She
+dreamed that night that she was walking through a picture-gallery with
+the girl called Reine, who was pointing out all the beauties to her as
+they went.
+
+In the meantime Reine was greatly delighted with the drawing.
+
+"The girl is really a little genius," she said; "will you not allow me
+to make her acquaintance?"
+
+"I will ask mamma to invite her to the drawing-room some evening," said
+Nell. "Mother does not like her to come often, for fear of spoiling her.
+Phyllis has an idea that Hetty needs a great deal of keeping down; but I
+think it is only because Phyllis is so good herself that she thinks so
+badly of Hetty."
+
+Reine laughed, and a look of fun remained in her eyes a few moments
+after this naive speech of Nell's. The peculiarities of Phyllis's style
+of goodness had not escaped Miss Gaythorne's quick intelligence.
+
+"And mother minds what Phyllis thinks a great deal more than she minds
+me; because Phyllis is so wise, and never gives her any trouble."
+
+The next morning at breakfast Reine said:
+
+"Do you know, Mr. Enderby, little Miss Gray has made me such a beautiful
+drawing. She has a great talent. I can't help wishing you would let her
+be an artist."
+
+"Has she been enlisting you against me?" said Mr. Enderby, with half a
+smile and half a frown.
+
+"I have never even seen her," said Reine; "but I am greatly struck with
+her work."
+
+"It is clever," assented the master of Wavertree; "but pray do not
+arouse foolish ideas in the child's head--ideas which have been
+fortunately laid to rest. I have great faith in the old warning, 'Beware
+of the man of one book'; and I think Hetty will do better to stick to
+what she has begun with. Under Miss Davis she has excellent
+opportunities of becoming fitted to be a governess, which, after all, is
+the safest career for a friendless woman. She lives in a respectable
+home and is saved from many dangers. I do not hold with the new-fangled
+notion of letting girls run about the world picking up professions."
+
+And then Mr. Enderby deliberately changed the conversation.
+
+However, Reine could not forget the little artist; and that evening,
+being dressed for dinner rather early, she suddenly bethought her of
+making her way uninvited to the school-room.
+
+"I really must see her and thank her," she reflected; "and I will ask
+pardon of Mrs. Enderby afterwards for the liberty." And then she set out
+to look for the school-room.
+
+It happened that Hetty was sitting all alone at the school-room table;
+her chin in her hand, her eyes fixed on the pages of a book. A window
+behind her, framing golden sky and deep-coloured foliage, made her the
+foreground figure of a striking picture. Her dark head and flowing hair,
+her pale but richly-tinted face with its thoughtful brow and intelligent
+mouth, her little warm brown hand and wrist were all softly and
+distinctly defined against the glories of the distance. As Reine opened
+the door and came in, Hetty looked up as much startled as if an angel
+had come to visit her.
+
+Reine was dressed all in white shimmering silk, which enhanced the
+beauty of her bright brunette face. Her soft luminous eyes beamed on
+Hetty as she advanced to her with outstretched hands.
+
+"I came to see you and thank you," she began; "I am Reine Gaythorne
+and--"
+
+Suddenly, as Hetty sprang to her feet and came forward smiling and
+facing the light, Reine's little speech died on her tongue, and a sharp
+cry broke from her.
+
+"My mother!" she exclaimed in a tone of deep feeling, and stood gazing
+at Hetty as if a ghost had risen up before her.
+
+Hetty retreated a step, and the two girls stood gazing at each other.
+Miss Gaythorne recovered herself quickly, but her hands and voice were
+trembling as she took Hetty's fingers in her own.
+
+"Have I frightened you, dear?" she said; "but oh, if you knew how
+strangely, how wonderfully like you are to my darling mother."
+
+"Your mother?" stammered Hetty.
+
+"Such a sweet beauty of a young mother she was as I remember her--and I
+have a likeness of her at your age;--it seems to me that you are the
+living image of it."
+
+"How very strange!" said Hetty, with a thrill of delight at the thought
+that she was like anybody belonging to this charming girl, especially
+her mother. Hetty had fascinating fancies of her own about an ideal
+mother; no real mother she had known had ever reached her standard. But
+Reine's mother must surely have been up to the mark. And to be told that
+she, Hetty, was like her! She drew nearer to Reine, who put her arms
+round her neck and kissed her.
+
+"I can't tell you how I feel," said Reine, holding her off and looking
+at her. "I feel as if you belonged to me someway."
+
+"Don't turn my head," pleaded Hetty wistfully. "Please remember I have
+no relations and must not expect to be loved. I have had great trouble
+about that; and it has been very hard for them to manage me."
+
+"Has it?" said Reine doubtfully.
+
+"As I'm now nearly grown up," said Hetty, "of course I have had to learn
+to behave myself; so don't spoil me."
+
+"I wish I could," said Reine. "I mean I wish I could get the chance. Oh,
+don't look at me like that. But yes, do. Oh, Hetty, my mother, my
+mother!"
+
+And Reine leaned her arms on the table, and laid her head on them, and
+wept.
+
+Hetty stood by wondering, and stroked her head timidly for sympathy.
+
+"Don't think me a great goose," said Reine, looking up. And then
+suddenly silent again she sat staring at Hetty. After a few moments she
+sprang up and folded her arms round her and held her close.
+
+"You strange darling, where have you come from; and how am I ever to let
+you go again?"
+
+A step was heard at the door, and Reine and Hetty instinctively withdrew
+from each other's embrace. There was something sacred about the feeling
+which had so suddenly and unexpectedly overpowered them both.
+
+Nell came in.
+
+"Reine, I have been looking for you everywhere."
+
+"I came here to thank Miss Gray for her design," said Reine, "and I
+don't think I have even mentioned it yet."
+
+"You are as pale as death," said Nell. "What has Hetty been saying to
+you?"
+
+"Nothing," said Reine absently, her eyes going back to Hetty's face and
+fixing themselves there.
+
+"How you stare at each other!" said Nell, "and I declare your two faces
+are almost the same this moment."
+
+"Nell!"
+
+"I always said you were like each other, though Phyllis could not see
+it. Now I am sure of it."
+
+A wild look came into Reine's face.
+
+"That would be too strange," she said; "for she is so like--so
+like--some one--Oh, Nell, she is the very image of my mother!"
+
+"Your mother!" echoed Nell, gazing at Hetty and thinking she did not
+look like anybody's mother, with her short frock and flowing hair.
+
+"But there is the dinner-bell!" she cried, glad of the interruption; for
+Nell had a great dislike of anything like a sentimental scene. "You must
+talk about all this afterwards, for we must not be late."
+
+"I will come," said Reine, passing her handkerchief over her face. "Do I
+look as if I had been crying."
+
+"Your nose is a little red," said Nell; "but they will think it is the
+cold."
+
+"Then don't say anything about this," said Reine; "but I must come and
+see Hetty again. Goodnight, darling little mother!"
+
+"Reine, all my respect for you is gone," said Nell as they hastened
+toward the dining-room. "I thought you were as wise as Phyllis. And to
+think of you crying and kissing like that because Hetty reminds you
+of--"
+
+"Don't, Nell," said Reine. "I can't bear any more just now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IF SHE WAS DROWNED, HOW CAN SHE BE HETTY?
+
+
+A few friends had joined the Wavertree family circle that evening, and
+Reine had no further opportunity of speaking about Hetty. She was absent
+and thoughtful; but wakened up when asked to sing, and sang a thrilling
+little love song with such power and sweetness as went to everybody's
+heart. She was thinking as she sang of Hetty's face, and it was her
+strange yearning for Hetty's love that inspired her to sing as she did.
+
+That night she could not sleep. Her mother's eyes, with the loving look
+she remembered so well, were gazing at her from all the corners of the
+room. Her mind went back over the recollections of her childhood; and
+her father's voice and her mother's smiles were with her as though she
+had only said good-night to both parents an hour ago. The lonely girl,
+who had everything that the world could offer her, except that which she
+longed for most, the affection of family and kindred, felt the very
+depths of her heart shaken by the experience of the past evening. That a
+girl who seemed so much a part of herself should have risen up beside
+her, and yet be nothing to her, seemed something too curious to be
+understood. Her imagination went to work upon the possibilities of Mr.
+Enderby's being induced to give Hetty up to her altogether, to be her
+adopted sister and to live with her for evermore. She was aware that
+people would distrust this sudden fancy for a stranger, and that
+opposition would probably be offered to her plan; but then she was not
+her own mistress; and by perseverance she must surely succeed in the
+end.
+
+Oh, the delight of having a sister! Reine had had a sister, a baby
+sister lost in infancy, and had often taken a sad pleasure in fancying
+what that sister might have been like if she had lived. She had been six
+years younger than Reine. Hetty was fifteen, about the age that the
+little sister might now have been. Reine sat up in her bed and counted
+the years between fifteen and twenty-one twice over on her fingers to
+make perfectly sure. Hetty was the very age of the little sister. And so
+like her mother! If the baby sister of whom she had been bereft could be
+still alive, then Reine would have declared she must be Hetty.
+
+She was now in a fever of excitement. Her curly brown hair had risen in
+a mop of rings and ringlets around her head with tossing on her pillow,
+her eyes were round and bright, and a burning spot was on each of her
+cheeks. At last she sprang out of bed and in a minute was at Nell's
+bed-room door.
+
+Nell was awakened out of a sound sleep by the opening of her door.
+
+"Don't be frightened, Nell; I'm not a burglar--only Reine."
+
+"What's the matter?" said Nell, rubbing her eyes. "Have you got the
+toothache?"
+
+"I never had toothache. I want to know something."
+
+"I often want to know things," said Nell, now sitting bolt upright in
+her little bed; "I'm sometimes _dying_ of curiosity. But it never
+routed me out of my sleep in the middle of the night."
+
+"It's about Hetty," said Reine, sitting on the floor in a faint streak
+of moonlight, and looking like a spirit--if spirits have curly hair.
+
+"You've gone Hetty-mad!" said Nell; "wouldn't Hetty keep till morning?
+We're not going to transport her or lock her up. You will have all next
+week to sit looking at her."
+
+"Where did you get her?" asked Reine. "I know she is a foundling; but
+she must have had a beginning somewhere."
+
+"Of course she had; and a most peculiar one. She was found on the Long
+Sands. That is a place three miles from Wavertree on the sea-shore,
+where wrecks often come in. John Kane, one of the carters, found her,
+and Mrs. Kane took her home. Then Aunt Amy, who is dead, fancied her and
+adopted her. When Aunt Amy died she was left unprovided for, and papa
+brought her here; and here she is."
+
+"Found on the shore where wrecks come in! And she is just fifteen. Oh,
+Nell, are you sure you are telling the truth?"
+
+There was a sound in Reine's voice that startled Nell.
+
+"The plain truth. Every village child knows it. What has it got to do
+with you?"
+
+"I don't know. I don't know. I am afraid to think. Why, Nell, listen to
+me. When I was a child of seven years old, my mother and father took me
+to France. They had inherited a property there and were going to take
+possession of it. They were fond of the sea, and they long travelled by
+sea. While still near this coast the vessel was overtaken by storm and
+wrecked. My father, mother, and myself were saved. But my little baby
+sister was washed out of my mother's arms and drowned."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"If she was drowned how can she be Hetty, if that is what you mean?"
+
+"They thought she was drowned. We were taken into another vessel and
+carried on to France."
+
+"And never asked any more questions about the baby?"
+
+"I don't know. My father and mother are both dead," said Reine
+pathetically; "I am sure they did all they could. But I know they
+thought they saw her drowned before their eyes."
+
+"And I suppose they did. Reine, stop walking about the floor like Crazy
+Jane, in your bare feet, and either come into my bed or go back to your
+own."
+
+"I am going," said Reine; "please forgive me, Nell, for spoiling your
+sleep."
+
+"Don't mention it. We can talk all the rest in the morning. If you are
+allowed to go on any more now, you will be mad to-morrow, and, what is
+worse, you will have a cold in your head."
+
+Nell curled herself up in her pillows again, and was soon fast asleep.
+But Reine could not sleep; and came down to breakfast next morning
+looking as pale as a ghost.
+
+After Mr. Enderby had gone to his study Nell began:
+
+"Mamma, do you know Reine has got a bee in her bonnet!"
+
+"My dear, where did you get such an expression?"
+
+"Never mind. It is quite accurate. She believes that Hetty is her sister
+who was drowned when she was a baby."
+
+Mrs. Enderby looked at Reine with a face of extreme surprise.
+
+"Nell talks so much nonsense," she said, "that I scarcely know what to
+think of her speeches sometimes." And then seeing Reine's eyes full of
+tears, she added kindly:
+
+"Dear child, is there any grain of truth in what this wild little
+scatter-brain has said?"
+
+Reine burst into tears.
+
+"Don't mind me, Mrs. Enderby, please; I have been awake all night, and I
+don't feel like myself. It is only that Hetty Gray is so--so
+_distressingly_ like my mother. And Nell says she was found on the
+sea-shore after a storm and wrecks. And it is fourteen years ago. And
+that is the very time when our vessel was wrecked, and my father and
+mother believed that our baby was drowned. Oh, Mrs. Enderby, only think!
+Is it not enough to turn my head?"
+
+"It is a very remarkable coincidence at least," said Mrs. Enderby; "but,
+dear Reine, try to compose your thoughts. You must not jump too hastily
+at conclusions. At the end of fourteen years it will be very difficult
+to find evidence to prove or disprove what you imagine may be true."
+
+Reine shook her head. "I have thought of that; I have thought of it all
+night."
+
+"In the first place, are you quite sure about the dates?"
+
+"Quite, on my own side. I have a little New Testament in which my father
+wrote down, the day after our rescue, the date of the wreck and a record
+of the baby's death."
+
+"We must send for Mrs. Kane," said Mrs. Enderby; "and hear what she has
+to say before we allow our imaginations to run away with us."
+
+"And oh, Mrs. Enderby,--if you saw the likeness of my mother at just
+Hetty's age! May I telegraph for it at once--to let you see it?"
+
+"Certainly, my dear; for it and that copy of the Testament. But not a
+word to Hetty. It would be cruel to run the risk of subjecting her to a
+heavy disappointment"
+
+The telegram was sent; and Mrs. Kane appeared, wondering greatly why
+she was wanted at the Hall in such a hurry.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Kane," said Mrs. Enderby, "here is a young lady who is
+greatly interested in the story of the finding of Hetty Gray on the Long
+Sands by your husband, and I have promised she shall hear of it from
+your own lips."
+
+They were all gathered round a sunny window in the great brown hall,
+lined with carved oak and decorated with armour and antlers. Mrs.
+Enderby herself pushed a stately old oaken chair towards the rose-framed
+sash and said encouragingly:
+
+"Sit down, Mrs. Kane, and make yourself comfortable. There is nothing to
+be nervous about. You know we are all friends of your favourite, Hetty."
+
+Mrs. Kane was trembling with some curious excitement, and could not
+remove her eyes from Reine Gaythorne's face.
+
+"I do not know who the young lady may be, ma'am," she said, "but this I
+will say, that she is as like my Hetty as if she was her own born
+sister."
+
+A flood of colour rushed over Reine's pale face, and she clasped her
+hands and fixed her eyes on Mrs. Enderby.
+
+"Never mind that," said Mrs. Enderby, "tell the young lady what you
+remember."
+
+"There's but little to tell," said Mrs. Kane, "beyond what everybody
+knows. John happened to be down upon the sands that night, and he got
+the baby lying at his feet. He brought her to me wrapped in his coat,
+and says he, 'Anne, here's God has sent us a little one.' And we kept it
+for our own, seeing that nobody asked for it. I have the day and the
+year written in my prayer-book; for I said to myself, some day, may-be,
+her friends will come looking for her--out of the sea, or over the land,
+or whatever way providence will send them. And for one whole week we
+called her nothing but 'H.G.'"
+
+"H.G.!" echoed Reine.
+
+"Those were the letters wrought upon the shoulder of her beautiful
+little shift," said Mrs. Kane. "And afterwards we made out that they
+stood for Hetty Gray."
+
+"She had on a little shift?"
+
+"Mrs. Rushton got it," said Mrs. Kane. "The finest bit of baby clothes I
+ever set my eyes on."
+
+Reine had come close to Mrs. Kane, and her lips were trembling as she
+went on questioning her:
+
+"Were the letters in white embroidery--satin stitch they call it? Were
+they all formed of little flowers curling in and out about the letters;
+and was the chemise of fine cambric with a narrow hem?"
+
+"That's the description as plain as if you were looking at it," said
+Mrs. Kane.
+
+"I have half a dozen like it at home in one of my mother's drawers,"
+said Reine turning red and pale. "Where is this little garment? is it
+not to be found?"
+
+"I have it, dear," said Mrs. Enderby quietly. "After Mrs. Rushton's
+death I took possession of it. I hardly anticipated so happy a day as
+this for poor Hetty, but I thought it my duty to take care of it."
+
+The little chemise was produced, and Reine identified it as one of the
+set belonging to her baby sister supposed to have been drowned, and
+marked with her initials standing for Helen Gaythorne.
+
+"My mother marked them herself," said Reine, examining the embroidery as
+well as she could through eyes blinded by tears. "She was wonderfully
+skilful with her needle, and took a pride in marking all our things with
+initials designed by herself. Oh, Mrs. Enderby, is not this evidence
+enough?"
+
+"It seems to me so," said Mrs. Enderby, "especially taken with the dates
+and the likeness to your family. When your mother's portrait comes----"
+
+"I must send for the little baby-garments too," said Reine; "but oh, why
+need we wait for anything more? May I not run to my sister, Mrs.
+Enderby?"
+
+"Calm yourself, my dear Reine, and be persuaded to take my advice. We
+must consult a lawyer and get information as to the wrecking of the
+vessel, and the place where the shipwreck occurred. It will then be seen
+whether it was possible for a child lost on the occasion to have lived
+to be washed in upon this shore."
+
+"Possible or not, it happened!" cried Reine. "Oh, Mrs. Enderby, unless
+you can make me sleep through the interval I shall never have patience
+to wait."
+
+The portrait of Reine's mother taken at fifteen years of age and the
+packet of tiny embroidered chemises arrived the next morning from
+London. The former looked exactly like a picture of Hetty; the latter
+was the counterpart of the baby-garment produced by Mrs. Enderby from a
+drawer of her own. Mr. Enderby was then consulted, and admitted that the
+case seemed established in Hetty's favour. However, prudent like his
+wife, he insisted that nothing should be said to Hetty till lawyers had
+been consulted, and information about the wreck of the vessel obtained.
+
+In the meantime Reine was abruptly sent home to London.
+
+"She will make herself ill if she is allowed to stay in the house with
+Hetty, and obliged to be silent towards her as to her discovery," said
+Mr. Enderby. "When the chain of evidence is complete, we can think of
+what to do."
+
+So Mr. Enderby himself carried off Reine to London that very night.
+
+"It will be necessary to come, my dear," he said, "and make inquiries at
+once. You will thus arrive more quickly at your end. Now just run into
+the school-room for a minute and say good-bye to Hetty. But if you love
+her, say nothing to disturb the child's peace."
+
+It cost Reine a great struggle to obey these sudden orders; but she saw
+their drift, and was wise enough not to oppose them. In her travelling
+dress she appeared in the school-room, where Hetty, all unconscious of
+the wonderful change for her that was hanging in the balance of Fate,
+sat at work as usual with Miss Davis.
+
+"I have come to say good-bye," said Reine; "I am called off to London in
+a hurry. But you must not forget me. We shall surely meet again."
+
+Hetty's heart sank with bitter disappointment She had been living in a
+sort of dream since yesterday, a dream of happiness at being so suddenly
+and unexpectedly loved by this sweet girl who had risen up like an angel
+in her path. The hope of seeing her again and enjoying her friendship
+had kept a glow of joy within her, which now went out and left darkness
+in its place. She strove to keep her face from showing how deeply she
+felt what seemed like caprice in Reine.
+
+Reine looked in her face with that long strange gaze which had so
+impressed Hetty's heart and imagination, smothered a sob, snatched a
+kiss from her sister's quivering lips, held her a moment in a close
+embrace, and then turned abruptly and was gone.
+
+"Miss Gaythorne seems a rather impulsive young lady," said Miss Davis
+disapprovingly. "I wish she had taken a fancy to some one else than my
+pupil. You must try to forget her, Hetty. Girls like her, with wealth
+and power and nobody to control them, are apt to become capricious, and
+work mischief with people who have business to attend to. I hope you
+understand me, Hetty."
+
+"Yes," said Hetty with a long sigh.
+
+"You must not expect to see Miss Gaythorne again. She will probably have
+forgotten you to-morrow."
+
+Miss Davis was not in the secret which was occupying the minds of
+several of the inmates of Wavertree Hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+HAPPY HETTY.
+
+
+About three weeks had passed away. Hetty had endured the worst throes of
+her disappointment, and had almost succeeded in banishing Reine out of
+her thoughts. She had steadily turned away her eyes from looking back at
+that beautiful evening, when, as if by enchantment, a girl who looked
+and spoke like a sister had held her in a loving embrace, lavishing
+kisses and loving words upon her, Hetty, who was known to be nobody's
+child. The quiet studious days went on as if no brilliant interruption
+had ever flashed in upon them. Miss Davis, at Mrs. Enderby's desire,
+kept Hetty more than ordinarily busy, and hindered her from paying her
+customary visits to Mrs. Kane. Mrs. Enderby distrusted the good woman's
+ability to keep a secret, and, with that prudence which had always
+distinguished her in her dealings with Hetty, she was resolved that the
+girl should hear no whisper to disturb her tranquillity till such time
+as her identity should be considered satisfactorily proved.
+
+At the end of three weeks' time, however, news came from London to Mr.
+Enderby which placed it beyond a doubt that Hetty was Helen Gaythorne,
+the baby who had been supposed to be drowned. Although Mrs. Enderby and
+her daughters had been prepared for this result of the inquiries that
+had been on foot, yet the established fact, with its tremendous
+importance for Hetty, seemed to come on them with a shock. The child who
+had been protected in their house, no longer needed their protection.
+The girl who was to have been sent out soon as a governess to earn her
+bread, would henceforth have pleasant bread to eat in a sister's
+luxurious home. The dependant, whom it had been thought judicious to
+snub, was now the equal of those who had so prudently dealt with her
+according to their lights.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Enderby were extremely pleased at the child's good fortune,
+and thankful that they had not been induced to send her to a charity
+school.
+
+"You are always right, dear," said Mrs. Enderby, looking at her husband
+with pride. "When I was a coward in the matter you insisted on having
+her here. And if she had gone elsewhere she would never have met Reine,
+and her identity could hardly have been discovered."
+
+"And her sister may thank you that she does not receive her a spoiled,
+passionate, unmanageable monkey. Your prudent treatment of the girl has
+had admirable results. Her demeanour has pleased me very much of late.
+Meekness and obedience have taken the place of her wilfulness and
+pride."
+
+Nell was perfectly wild with excitement and delight, clapped her hands
+over her head and danced about the room.
+
+"I was always the one who liked Hetty the best," she said triumphantly,
+"and now she will remember it. She will ask me to France to stay with
+her. And nobody can warn me any more not to give her too much
+encouragement. I can be allowed to make a companion of Miss Helen
+Gaythorne."
+
+"What a very unpleasant way you always have of twisting things!" said
+Phyllis, who had been remarkably silent all along as to the change in
+Hetty's circumstances. "I am as glad as anyone of Hetty's discovery; but
+I do not see why it should make any difference to us."
+
+"Phyllis takes a more disinterested view of the matter than you do,
+Nell," said Mrs. Enderby smiling; "but then my Phyllis was always a wise
+little girl."
+
+Nell pouted, and Phyllis held her head high. Mrs. Enderby thought she
+knew the hearts of both. But the woman who could be so exceedingly
+prudent in the management of "nobody's child" was blind to a great deal
+that required skilful treatment in the characters and dispositions of
+her own daughters.
+
+Miss Davis was more affected than anyone in the house by the news of
+Hetty's extraordinary good fortune. Unconsciously to herself she had
+learned to love the girl, whom she had counted upon having by her side
+for many years to come, and it was not without a pang that she saw the
+young figure disappear suddenly out of her future. Hetty alone knew
+nothing of the change that had befallen her.
+
+"No, my dear," said Mrs. Enderby to Nell, "I will not allow you to tell
+her. Indeed, I am a little nervous about the matter, for Hetty is such a
+strangely impressionable girl one never knows what way she will take
+things. I must break the truth to her myself."
+
+So Hetty was sent for to Mrs. Enderby's dressing-room, and went with
+rather a heavy heart, thinking some complaint had been made of her. She
+had never been so sent for except when trouble was impending.
+
+"I must try to be patient," she was thinking as she went up the stairs.
+"I do not know what I can have done so very wrong, but I suppose there
+must be something."
+
+But her sadness was soon turned into amazement and joy.
+
+"Hetty," said Mrs. Enderby, "Miss Gaythorne wishes to have you with her
+in London, on a visit. Mr. Enderby and I have consented to allow you to
+go; and I suppose you will not object to give her pleasure."
+
+"Miss Gaythorne!" exclaimed Hetty, scarcely believing she had heard
+rightly.
+
+"She has taken a fancy to you, and wishes to have you with her. She is a
+charming girl, and I am sure she will make you happy."
+
+Hetty's face, glowing with delight, sufficiently answered this last
+speech; but her tongue could find no words.
+
+"In fact, I may as well tell you," continued Mrs. Enderby, "that Reine
+has discovered you are some kind of relation of hers; and, as she is her
+own mistress and very independent, she will be disposed to make the most
+of the relationship."
+
+Hetty was turning slowly pale. "Relationship!" she murmured. "Am I
+really related to Miss Gaythorne?" and Reine's cry, "My mother, oh, my
+mother!" seemed to ring again in her ears.
+
+"I believe so, my dear. There, do not think too much of it. At all
+events, you are to go to her now, and she will tell you all about it.
+But mind, you and she are to come back and spend Christmas with us. Mark
+will be at home then, and he will be anxious to see his old playfellow."
+
+"Christmas!" echoed Hetty, in new astonishment. This was only the end of
+September.
+
+"You see, I fancy Reine will not let you go in a hurry once she has got
+you," said Mrs. Enderby; "and now, my dear, don't stand there in a dream
+any longer, but run away and get ready for the mid-day train. Mr.
+Enderby has to do some business in London, and he will leave you in
+Portland Place. No, you will not have time to go to see Mrs. Kane. I
+will give her your love, and tell her you will see her when you come
+back."
+
+"I am not going to have her told till she is in her sister's house,"
+reflected Mrs. Enderby; "and Mrs. Kane would be sure to pour out
+everything suddenly. The child is of so excitable a nature, I do not
+know what might be the consequences to her."
+
+That she could not say good-bye to Mrs. Kane made the only flaw in
+Hetty's happiness; but she left a little note for her with Miss Davis,
+who promised to have it safely delivered. And then, with smiles and good
+wishes from everyone, and pondering over a few mysterious glances which
+she caught passing from one person to another over her head, Hetty took
+her place by Mr. Enderby in his trap, and was whirled away to the
+railway-station.
+
+Mr. Enderby talked to her kindly as they went along, about the pleasures
+in store for her in London, especially in the picture-galleries, as she
+had a taste for art.
+
+"And always remember, my dear," he said, "that in the rules I laid down
+for your education with a view to your future, I acted as I thought best
+for your good."
+
+Hetty said warmly, "I know--I am sure of that"; and then she began to
+wonder at his curious manner of speaking, as if all his dealings with
+her were in the past, and he had no longer any control over her. Could
+it be, she asked herself, that Reine was going to take her and have her
+taught to be an artist?
+
+The thought was too delightful to be borne with, considering the
+likelihood of disappointment. She tried to put it out of her head, and
+listened to Mr. Enderby as he talked to her of Westminster Abbey and the
+Tower.
+
+That afternoon about five o'clock, in a certain handsome drawing-room in
+Portland Place, Reine was flitting about restlessly with flushed cheeks,
+now re-arranging the roses in some jar, now picking up her embroidery
+and putting a few stitches in it, then going to the window and looking
+out. The afternoon tea equipage was on a little table beside her, but
+she did not help herself to a cup. She was evidently waiting for some
+one.
+
+At last there was a sound of wheels stopping, and Reine's trembling
+hands dropped her work into her basket. A ring came to the door, and
+Reine was in the middle of the room, pressing her hands together, and
+listening to the closing of the door with impatient delight.
+
+"Miss Helen Gaythorne!" announced the servant, who knew that his
+mistress's young sister was expected, and who had not asked Hetty for
+her name. In the excitement of the moment Hetty heard, but hardly
+understood the announcement. She thought the servant had made a curious
+blunder.
+
+"Mr. Enderby will come in the evening," began Hetty advancing shyly, and
+then, as the servant disappeared, she raised her eyes and saw Reine.
+
+"Hetty--Helen! my darling! my sister!" cried Reine, snatching her into
+her arms and laughing and crying on her shoulder.
+
+"Sister?" murmured Hetty breathlessly, feeling quite stunned. "Oh, Miss
+Gaythorne, what are you saying?"
+
+"Do you mean that they have not told you?" cried Reine, covering her
+face with kisses.
+
+"Some kind of a relation," murmured Hetty, "that was what they told me.
+Oh, Miss Gaythorne, think of what you have said! Do not make fun of me,
+I cannot bear it."
+
+"Fun of you! Why, Hetty, Helen! I tell you, you are my sister. My
+ownest, dearest, darlingest daughter of my mother--the mother you are so
+like!"
+
+"But how--how can it be?" asked Hetty with a look almost of terror on
+her face.
+
+"You are our baby who was supposed to have been drowned," said Reine.
+_"That's_ how it comes to be. We were wrecked going to France, and you
+were washed out of my mother's arms. And we thought you were drowned.
+But God was keeping you safe for me at Wavertree."
+
+"How have you found it all out?" said Hetty, still holding fast by her
+doubt, which seemed the only plank that could save her from destruction
+in case this enchanting story should prove to be all a dream.
+
+"It is completely proved, you little sceptic!" cried Reine. "Mr. Enderby
+would not have you told till the lawyers had pronounced you to be Helen
+Gaythorne. So ask me no more questions at present, but give me back some
+of my kisses. You and I are never going to part any more; are we?"
+
+Hetty gave her a long, strange, troubled look, and then suddenly broke
+out into wild weeping.
+
+"Oh, is it true? Is it really true? Oh, Reine, my sister; if, after
+this, it comes to be false--I shall die!"
+
+"It cannot come to be false, because it is reality," insisted Reine, as
+she rocked her weeping sister in her arms. "I shall be mother and sister
+and all to you, Helen--my poor little motherless darling! Cry away, my
+dearest, for this once, and then you shall have some tea. And after that
+you are never to cry any more. You and I will have a great deal too much
+to say and do together to spend our time over crying. But oh,
+Hetty--Helen--if mother and father were only here this day!"
+
+And then Reine cried again herself, and Hetty was the comforter. They
+sat with their young heads together and their warm cheeks touching, and
+told as much of their life's stories to each other as they could think
+of at the moment. To Reine the great discovery had come gradually, and
+so the present hour was not so strange as it was to Hetty. For Hetty the
+world seemed to have got suddenly under a spell of enchantment. She
+could not believe in herself as Helen Gaythorne--could not get
+accustomed to her new vision of life.
+
+"And I shall not need to be a governess. And perhaps I may be an artist
+if I like."
+
+"You will not need to be either. There is enough of wealth for both of
+us," said Reine. "But you can study art to your heart's content. And we
+will go to Italy. And you shall be as happy as a queen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And here I think we may take leave of Hetty Gray, in the fulness of her
+happiness, and in Reine's loving arms. When I last heard of the sisters
+they were leading a busy, active, and joyous life. John Kane having
+died, Mrs. Kane has found a home with them; and Scamp, who is now quite
+an old dog, spends his days in tranquil ease at Hetty's feet.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HETTY GRAY***
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