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Updated: May 4, 2025
And to go out of that obstinately darkened refuge of fretful sorrow, into the room where the blind had been drawn up the moment her back was turned, and where these three tearless children, totally unimpressed by the information which they had received as a piece of news with mingled curiosity and scepticism, occupied themselves with their usual sports, or listened keenly, with sharp remarks, to the sounds below, which only the utmost stretch of Nettie's authority could keep them from descending to investigate, afforded a wonderful reverse to the picture, which startled her in her momentary clearsightedness.
The Duke had no further comment on Taterleg's rules of conduct. They went along in silence a little way, but that was a state that Taterleg could not long endure. "Well, I'll soon be in the oyster parlor up to the bellyband," he said, full of the cheer of his prospect. "Nettie's got the place picked out and nailed down I sent her the money to pay the rent.
If Nettie sprang to her feet in sudden heat and disgust, and peremptorily closed the doors intervening between the children and their mother, nobody will much wonder at that movement of impatience. Perhaps Nettie's eyes had never been so entirely opened to the hopeless character of the charge she had taken upon her, as in the temporary seclusion of that day.
She could not meet Edward Rider, nor he her, with a calm pretence of friendship; and Susan, always insolent and spiteful, and now mistress of the position, filled the doctor with an amount of angry irritation which his longings for Nettie's society could not quite subdue. That perpetual barrier between them dismayed both.
Besides that, it was a clean, neat little room; bare to be sure, without even Barry's strip of rag carpet; but on a little black table lay Nettie's Bible and Sunday-school books; and each window had a chair; and a chest of drawers held all her little wardrobe and a great deal of room to spare besides; and the cot-bed in one corner was nicely made up.
Nettie said no more, only ate her breakfast a little quicker after that. It was time, too; for the late hours of some of the family always made her in a hurry about getting to Sunday-school; and the minute Nettie had done, she got her bonnet, her Sunday bonnet the best she had to wear and set off. Mrs. Mathieson never let her wait for anything at home that morning. This was Nettie's happy time.
My affinities were unchanged; Nettie's personal charm for me was only quickened by the enhancement of my perceptions. In her presence, meeting her eyes, instantly my desire, no longer frantic but sane, was awake again. It was just like going to Checkshill in the old time, after writing about socialism. . . . I relinquished her hand. It was absurd to part in these terms. So we all felt it.
Perhaps I had written irrelevant love-letters for that very reason; because with this stark theme I could not play. . . The thought of Nettie's shining form, of her shrinking bold abandon to her easy conqueror, gave me now a body of rage that was nearly too strong for my heart and nerves and the tense powers of my merely physical being.
Nettie's class in the Sunday-school was of ten little girls about her own age; and their teacher was a very pleasant and kind gentleman, named Mr. Folke. Nettie loved him dearly; she would do anything that Mr. Folke told her to do. Their teacher was very apt to give the children a question to answer from the Bible; for which they had to look out texts during the week.
But nobody that saw her sober sweet little face would have guessed how very full her heart was of prayer, even as they walked along the street among the rest of the people. And when they got to church, it seemed as if every word of the prayers and of the reading and of the hymns and of the sermon, struck on all Nettie's nerves of hearing and feeling.
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