"'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! Cæsar 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."
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 to her that you was goin' to take her right in to be like one o' your own family, she turned as white as a sheet, and says she,--
"'You don't mean it, father: she won't ever dare to:' and when I said, says I,--
"'Yes, she does: Hetty Gunn ain't a girl not to know what she means to do. And that's just what she says she's goin' to do with you and Jim,' she broke right out crying, out loud, just like a little baby, and says she,--
"'If the Lord don't bless Hetty Gunn for bein' so good to us! she sha'n't ever be sorry for it's long's she lives.'"
"Of course I sha'n't," said Hetty, bluntly. "I never was sorry yet for any thing I did which was right, and I am as sure this is right as I am that I am alive. When will they come?"
"Sarah said she would come right over to-day, if you'd like to have her help you; and Jim he could fix up things at home, and shut the house up. Jim said they'd better not let the house till you had tried how it worked havin' 'em here. Jim don't seem very sanguine about it. Poor fellow, he's got the spirit all taken out of him."