True followed Gerty's eyes as they wandered around the room. He looked amazed to satisfy her anticipations, great as they had been. He had been gone since morning, and things had indeed undergone a transformation. Woman's hands had evidently been at work clearing up and setting to rights.
Until Gerty came to live with True his home had never been subjected to female intrusion. Living alone, and entertaining scarcely any visitors, he tried to make himself comfortable in his own way, regardless of appearances. In his humble apartment sweeping day came but seldom, and spring-cleaning was unknown. The corners of the ceiling were festooned with cob-webs; the mantle-piece had accumulated a curious medley of things, while there was no end to the rubbish that had collected under the grate. During Gerty's illness, a bed made up on the floor for True, and the various articles required in her sick-room, had increased the clutter to such an extent that one almost needed a pilot to conduct him in safety through the apartment.
Mrs. Sullivan was the soul of neatness in her rooms, in her own dress for simplicity, and freedom from the least speck or stain. It was to nurse Gerty, and take care of her in True's absence, that she first entered a room the reverse of her own; the contrast was painful to her, and it would have been a real pleasure to clear up and put it to rights; and she resolved as soon as Gerty got well, to exert herself in the cause of cleanliness and order, which was, in her eyes, the cause of virtue and happiness, so completely did she identify outward neatness and purity with inward peace.
On the day previous to that on which the great cleaning operations took place, Gerty was observed by Mrs. Sullivan standing in the passage near her door, and looking wistfully in. "Come in, Gerty," said the kind little woman; "come in and see me.--Here," added she, seeing how timid the child felt in intruding into a strange room; "you may sit up here by the table and see me iron. This is your little dress. I am smoothing it out, and then your things will all be done! You'll be glad of some new clothes, shan't you?"
"Very glad, marm," said Gerty. "Am I to take them away, and keep them all myself?"