Hettys Strange History | Page 8

Nan," replied Hetty, smiling, "and I want to have a good talk with you now, and make you understand about our life here. You want to please me, don't you, Nan?"
"Oh, yes! Miss Hetty. You knows I do, and so does C?sar. We wouldn't have no other missus, not in all these Norf States: we'd sooner go back down where we was raised." Hetty smiled involuntarily at this violent comparison, knowing well that both C?sar and Nan would have died sooner than go back to the land where they were "raised." But she went on,--
"Very well. You never need have any other mistress as long as I live: and when I die you and C?sar will have money enough to make you comfortable, and a nice little house. Now the first thing I want you to understand is that we are going to live on here in this house, exactly as we did when my father was here. I shall carry on the farm exactly as he would if he were alive; that is, as nearly as I can. Now you will make it very hard for me, if you cry and are lonesome, and say such things as you said to-night. If you want to please me, you will go right on with your work cheerfully, and behave just as if your master were sitting there in his chair all the time. That is what will please him best, too, if he is looking on, as I don't doubt he very often will be."
"But is you goin' to be here all alone, Miss Hetty? yer don't know what yer a layin' out for, yer don't," interrupted Nan.
"No," replied Hetty: "Mr. James Little and his wife are coming here to stay. He will be overseer of the farm."
"What! Her that was Sally Newhall?" exclaimed Nan, in a sharp tone.
"Yes, that was Mrs. Little's name before she was married," replied Hetty, looking Nan full in the face with a steady expression, intended to restrain any farther remarks on the subject of Mrs. Little. But Nan was not to be restrained.
"Before she was married! Yes'm! an' a good deal too late 'twas she was married too. 'Deed, Miss Hetty, yer ain't never going to take her in to live with you, be yer?" she muttered.
"Yes, I am, Nan," Hetty said firmly; "and you must never let such a word as that pass your lips again. You will displease me very much if you do not treat Mrs. Little respectfully."
"But, Miss Hetty," persisted Nan. "Yer don't know"--
"Yes, I do, Nan: I know it all. But I pity them both very much. We have all done wrong in one way or another; and it is the Lord's business to punish people, not ours. You 've often told me, Nan, about that pretty little girl of yours and C?sar's that died when I was a baby. Supposing she had lived to be a woman, and some one had led her to do just as wrong as poor Sally Little did, wouldn't you have thought it very hard if the whole world had turned against her, and never given her a fair chance again to show that she was sorry and meant to live a good life?"
Nan was softened.
"'Deed would I, Miss Hetty. But that don't make me feel like seein' that gal a settin' down to table with you, Miss Hetty, now I tell yer! C?sar nor me couldn't stand that nohow!"
"Yes you can, Nan; and you will, when you know that it would make me very unhappy to have you be unkind to her," answered Hetty, firmly. "She and her husband both, have done all in their power to atone for their wrong; and nobody has ever said a word against Mrs. Little since her marriage; and one thing I want distinctly understood, Nan, by every one on this place,--any disrespectful word or look towards Mr. or Mrs. Little will be just the same as if it were towards me myself."
Nan was silenced, but her face wore an obstinate expression which gave Hetty some misgivings as to the success of her experiment. However, she knew that Nan could be trusted to repeat to the other servants all that she had said, and that it would lose nothing in the recital; and, as for the future, one of Hetty's first principles of action was an old proverb which her grandfather had explained to her when she was a little girl,--
"Don't cross bridges till you come to them."

III.
The gratitude with which James Little's wife received Hetty's proposition was so great that it softened even her father-in-law's heart.
"I do believe, Hetty," he said, when he gave her their answer, "I do believe that poor girl has suffered more 'n we've given her credit for. When I explained