She did look very white and faint, and Jennie saw it, and tried to be calm, though she kept whispering to herself as she gathered up the debris on the floor, and with a most rueful expression took it down stairs, saying to her mistress: "An' faith it's a bad beginnin' I've made, mum, but sure an' I'll pay you every farthing with me first wages, and now, if you plase, I'll do up my fut, for it's blistered, that it is, with the bilin' tay."
The foot was cared for, and another tray of toast and tea prepared. This, Miss Betsey took herself to Bessie, explaining that Jennie was the cousin who had come to take her former housemaid's place.
"But I had no idea," she said, "that she was such a behemoth. I am afraid she will not answer my purpose at all."
But Bessie pleaded for the girl, whose kindness of heart she knew, and who, she felt sure, could be molded and softened by careful and judicious training, and that afternoon, when Jennie came up to her she told her that her aunt did not like a noise, and that she must be very quiet and gentle if she wished to please.
Jennie listened to her, open-eyed, and when she was through responded: "Is it quiet she wants? I told her I would whasper, an' faith I wull; for I'm bound to stay with you, and get me tin shillings a week."
The case seemed hopeless, and Jennie might have lost her place but for the serious illness which came upon Bessie, taking away all her vitality, and making her weak and helpless as a child. It was then that Jennie showed her real value, and by her watchful tenderness and untiring devotion, more than made amends for all her awkwardness.
Day after day, and night after night, she staid in the sick room, ministering to Bessie as no one else could have done, lifting her tenderly in her strong arms, and sometimes walking with her up and down the large chamber into which she had been carried when the physician said her sickness might be of weeks' duration, for she was suffering from all the fatigue and worry of the last two years, when the strain upon her nerves had been so great.
All through the remaining weeks of summer, and the September days which followed, Bessie lay in her bed, scarcely noticing any thing which was passing around her, and saying to her aunt when she bent over her, asking how she felt: "Tired, so tired, and it is nice to rest."
And so the days went by, and everybody in Allington became interested in the young girl whom few had seen, but of whom a great deal was told by Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, whose carriage often stood at Miss McPherson's door, bringing sometimes the lady herself, and sometimes Augusta, who had returned from Saratoga, and was busy with the preparations for her wedding, which was to take place in October.