for thinking of Jack, whose bruises and breakages her lively
fancy painted in the darkest colors.
"Oh, don't be good to me, Mammy; I made him go, and now he's hurt
dreadfully, and may die; and it is all my fault, and everybody ought to
hate me," sobbed poor Jill, as a neighbor left the room after reporting
in a minute manner how Jack screamed when his leg was set, and how Frank
was found white as a sheet, with his head under the pump, while Gus
restored the tone of his friend's nerves, by pumping as if the house was
on fire.
"Whist, my lass, and go to sleep. Take a sup of the good wine Mrs. Minot
sent, for you are as cold as a clod, and it breaks my heart to see my
Janey so."
"I can't go to sleep; I don't see how Jack's mother could send me
anything when I've half killed him. I want to be cold and ache and have
horrid things done to me. Oh, if I ever get out of this bed I'll be the
best girl in the world, to pay for this. See if I ain't!" and Jill
gave such a decided nod that her tears flew all about the pillow like a
shower.
"You'd better begin at once, for you won't get out of that bed for a
long while, I'm afraid, my lamb," sighed her mother, unable to conceal
the anxiety that lay so heavy on her heart.
"Am I hurt badly, Mammy?"
"I fear it, lass."
"I'm _glad_ of it; I ought to be worse than Jack, and I hope I am. I'll
bear it well, and be good right away. Sing, Mammy, and I'll try to go to
sleep to please you."
Jill shut her eyes with sudden and unusual meekness, and before her
mother had crooned half a dozen verses of an old ballad, the little
black head lay still upon the pillow, and repentant Jill was fast asleep
with a red mitten in her hand.
Mrs. Pecq was an Englishwoman who had left Montreal at the death of her
husband, a French Canadian, and had come to live in the tiny cottage
which stood near Mrs. Minot's big house, separated only by an
arbor-vitae hedge. A sad, silent person, who had seen better days, but
said nothing about them, and earned her bread by sewing, nursing, work
in the factory, or anything that came in her way, being anxious to
educate her little girl. Now, as she sat beside the bed in the small,
poor room, that hope almost died within her, for here was the child
laid up for months, probably, and the one ambition and pleasure of the
solitary woman's life was to see Janey Pecq's name over all the high
marks in the school-reports she proudly brought home.
"She'll win throu
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