Bessie at the Sea-Side

Miss Adams stood tapping the toe of her gaiter with her riding whip. "I promise you," she said, "that I will let her come back to you in a moment or two, and that I will not do the least thing which could trouble or tease her."

"Promises and fair words cost nothing," said nurse.

"How dare you say that to me?" she said, losing her temper at last. "Whatever else I may have done, I have never yet broken my word! Bessie," – she said this in a softer tone, – "don't think that of me, dear. I would not say what was not true, or break a promise, for the world." Then to nurse again: "You're an obstinate old woman, and – Look at that child!"

These last words were said in a startled tone and with a frightened look.

Nurse turned her head, started up, and then stood still with fear and amazement. Finding himself unnoticed, Master Franky had concluded that he had sat quiet long enough, and slipping off his stone, he had scrambled up the bank and walked upon the bridge. About the centre of this he found a broken place in the railing through which he put the stick and line with which he was playing to fish. Putting his head through after it, he saw that it did not touch the water and that just in front of him was the projecting end of one of the logs. Here, he thought, he could fish better, and slipping through, he was now where Miss Adams told nurse to look at him, stooping over, with one fat hand grasping the railing and with the other trying to make his line touch the water. The bridge was four or five feet above the stream, and although a fall from it might not have been very dangerous for a grown person, a little child like Franky might easily have been swept away by the current, which was deepest and swiftest where he was standing.

"Don't speak," said Miss Adams, hastily, and darting round to the other side of the bridge, she walked directly into the water, and stooping down, passed under the bridge and came out under the spot where Franky stood. As she had expected, the moment he saw her, he started and fell, but Miss Adams was ready for him. She caught him in her arms, waded through the water, and placed him safe and dry on the grass.

"Oh, you naughty boy!" said nurse, the moment she had done so, "what am I to do with you now?"

"Nosin' at all; Franky dood boy. Didn't fall in water."

"And whose fault is that I should like to know," said Miss Adams, laughing and shaking her dripping skirts, "you little monkey? I do not know but I should have done better to let you fall into the water and be well frightened before I pulled you out."

"Franky not frightened; Franky brave soldier," said the child.

"You're a mischievous monkey, sir," said the young lady.

"That he is," said nurse, speaking in a very different way from that in which she had spoken before. "And where would he have been now but for you and the kind Providence which brought you here, miss? What would I have done, with the baby in my arms and he standing there? I'd never have thought of catching him that way. It was right cute of you, miss."

"I saw it was the only way," said Miss Adams. "I knew he would be off that slippery log if he was startled."

"I thank you again and again, miss," said the nurse, "and so will his mother; there's your beautiful dress all spoiled."

"Oh! that's nothing," said Miss Adams, giving her dress another shake; "it was good fun. But now, when I have saved one of your chickens from a ducking, you cannot think I would hurt the other if you let me have her for a moment."

"Surely I will," said nurse; "but you are not going to stand and talk in such a pickle as that? You'll catch your death of cold."

"No fear," said Miss Adams, "I am tough. Come now, Bessie." She held out her hand to the little girl, and now that she had saved her brother, she went with her willingly. She was not afraid of her any more, though she wondered very much what the lady could have to say to her which nurse might not hear.

"You'll excuse me for speaking as I did before, miss, but I'm an old woman, and cross sometimes, and then you see – " Nurse hesitated.

"Yes, I see. I know I deserved it all," said Miss Adams, and then she led Bessie to the other side of the road. "Suppose I lift you up here, Bessie; I can talk to you better." She lifted her up and seated her on the stone wall which ran along the road.

"Now," she said, leaning her arms upon the wall, "I want to ask you something."

"I know what you want to ask me," said Bessie, coloring.

"What is it, then?"

"You want me to say I'm sorry 'cause I said that to you the other day, and I am sorry. Mamma said it was saucy. But I didn't mean to be saucy. I didn't know how to help it, you asked me so much."

"You need not be sorry, Bessie. I deserved it, and it was not that I was going to speak about. I wanted to ask you to forgive me for being so unkind to you. Will you?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am! I did forgave you that day, and mamma told me something which made me very sorry for you."

"What was it? Would she like you to repeat it?"

"I guess she wont care. She said your father and mother died when you were a little baby, and you had a great deal of money, more than was good for you, and you had no one to tell you how to take care of it; so if you did things you ought not to, we ought to be sorry for you, and not talk much about them."

Miss Adams stood silent a moment, and then she said, slowly, —

"Yes, if my mother had lived, Bessie, I might have been different. I suppose I do many things I should not do if I had a mother to care about it; but there is no one to care, and I don't know why I should myself. I may as well take my fun."

"Miss Adams," said Bessie, "hasn't your mother gone to heaven?"

"Yes, I suppose so," said the young lady, looking a little startled, – "yes, I am sure of it. They say she was a good woman."

"Then don't she care up there?"

"I don't know. They say heaven is a happy place. I should not think my mother could be very happy even there, if she cared about me and saw me now."

"Do you mean she wouldn't like to see you do those things you say you ought not to do?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't you do things that will make her happy? I would try to, if my mother went to heaven."

"What would you do?"

"I don't know," said Bessie.

"I suppose you would not pull little girls' hair, or tease them, or behave like a kitchen lady."

"Please don't speak of that any more," said Bessie, coloring.

"And your mother thinks I have too much money; does she? Well, I do not know but I have, if having more than I know what to do with is having too much."

"Why don't you give some away?" Bessie asked.

"I do, and then am scolded for it. I drove down the other day to take some to those shipwrecked people, and the next day Mr. Howard came to me with his long face and told me I had done more harm than good; for some of them had been drinking with the money I gave them, and had a fight and no end of trouble. That is always the way. I am tired of myself, of my money, and everything else."

Bessie did not know what to make of this odd young lady, who was talking in such a strange way to her, but she could not help feeling sorry for her as she stood leaning on the wall with a tired, disappointed look on her face, and said these words in a troubled voice.

"Miss Adams," she said, "why don't you ask our Father in heaven to give you some one to take care of you and your money, and to make you – " Bessie stopped short.

"Well," said Miss Adams, smiling, "to make me what?"

"I am afraid you would not like me to say it," said Bessie, fidgeting on her hard seat. "I think I had better go to nurse."

"You shall go, but I would like to hear what you were going to say. To make me what?"

"To make you behave yourself," said Bessie, gravely, not quite sure she was doing right to say it.

But Miss Adams laughed outright, then looked grave again.