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Updated: June 15, 2025
Hatty's temper had been very trying for the last three days; she had slaved for Bessie to the detriment of her health, but had worn an injured manner all the time. She would not join in the conversation, nor understand a joking remark. When Christine laughed at her in a good-humored way, Hatty pursed up her lips, and drew herself up in a huffy manner, and would not condescend to speak a word.
"Poor little thing!" thought Bessie compassionately, for there was a specially soft place in her heart for Hatty. She had always been her particular charge. All Hatty's failures, her miserable derelictions of duty, her morbid self-accusations and nervous fancies, bred of a sickly body and over-anxious temperament, were breathed into Bessie's sympathizing ear.
And yet, I could not help feeling that if I were ill and wanted to be helped up-stairs, or if I were wretched and wanted comforting, it would be Ephraim to whom I should appeal, and not one of these fine gentlemen. They seemed only to be made for sunshine. He would wear, and stand rain. If Hatty's "men" were all Ephraims, there might be some sense in caring for their opinions.
He had come up now, and stood looking at Hatty's white, miserable face. If he had seen it a few minutes earlier, he would have thought the misery far greater. "Well, this is a pretty to-do!" cried my Uncle. "Hatty, child, these wretches have used you ill. Why on earth did you stay with them?" "At first I did not want to get away, Uncle," she said, "and afterwards I could not."
Her days were passed in a sick-room, and from hour to hour she seemed only to live on Hatty's looks and words. Bessie had for many years been her mother's right hand, and now she shared her watch beside the sick-bed. Her bright, healthy color began to fade from fatigue and anxiety, and it needed her father's stringent orders to induce her to take needful rest and exercise.
"Don't send Ambrose Catterall away, there's a good Father!" says she: "there will be two of us old maids as it is." Father laughed, and pinched Hatty's ear. So I saw my gentlewoman had been thinking the same thing I had. But I don't think she ought to have said it out. Stay, now! Why should it be worse to say things than to think them? Is it as bad to think them as to say them?
It was so nice to see him with you to-night; he will never want a mother now. You like him, do you not?" rather shyly. "Yes, indeed; we all like him; there is something so genuine about him. My darling, I have not felt so happy since our poor Hatty's death."
A quiet walk now and then, and that half hour in Hatty's room, was all Bessie could conscientiously spare. If she stayed away for an hour, Christine complained of dullness, and her mother looked sadder on her return. Ella and Katie, too, made constant demands on her time and patience. Christine was very unlike Bessie in temperament.
"I always care to go with you, father dear," replied Bessie, and then she hesitated, as she remembered Hatty's pale cheeks; "but I think you ought to take Hatty instead; it would do her so much good, and she does so love a drive." "No, I think you shall be my companion this afternoon; I will take Hatty to-morrow," replied the doctor, as he took up his paper again.
"I am afraid I am a sad chatterbox," returned Bessie, blushing, as though she were conscious of an implied reproof. "Oh, but I like talking people. People who hold their tongues and listen are such bores. I do detest bores. I talk a great deal myself." "I think I have got into the way for Hatty's sake. Hatty is the sickly one of our flock; she has never been strong.
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