Mrs. Bates was very lonely after Nannie went to nurse Dora, but she
could not decline so good an offer, and hardly thought of herself as she
felt what a nice home it would make for the child. Mrs. Minturn
permitted Nannie to go often to see her mother, for she felt a parent's
sympathy for the forlorn woman who was bereft of all her children, and
she would herself go and sit beside Dora's little crib, when the babe
was wakeful, rather than deprive Nannie of her visit to her home. She
knew how bitter a thing it was to be separated from the little ones that
shed such a halo over the house, and she could easily spare the girl one
hour an evening to cheer the lonely and widowed. Dora would object, and
cling to the young nurse that she had so soon learned to love; but the
clasp would grow weaker and weaker, until the non-resisting form could
be placed upon the bed, and Nannie always hastened back before there was
any real need. It was a happy hour for her mother and Pat--the one
Nannie spent with them. The table was drawn out and the books were upon
it, and the low voice read or chatted, and a merry ringing laugh was
often heard in the attic--and then Pat would go back with the child to
see that she was safe, and woe betide the boy that dared an insulting
word or look.
"Wasn't he a brave lad, though?" said Nannie, as she told Biddy about
the water, and the beating Pat gave the impudent troop of boys.
Biddy didn't dispute it, but she always went off into some rhapsody
about a "bonnie lad she had left in ould Ireland, jist the boy that
would be afther breaking the heart of ye, Nannie!"
Nannie had not reached that point yet, though, and was quite as
contented watching the sleeping babe, as if there were no such trysting
places as sidewalks, and no enamored boys and girls talking over the
black railings about an Erin of their own yet to be established in the
new country. She knew what it was to love her mother and the dead child,
whose memory would never die out of her warm heart, and good Mr. Bond,
who had always seemed to her so far above all other mortals--and Pat,
too, who was, she thought, the impersonation of all that was beautiful
and good; but the "breaking of the heart of ye" was a dead language to
her, saving when it referred to some terrible affliction. Don't talk to
Nannie about that, yet, Biddy. You're both better off with the kind
mistress, and the nice home, and the warmth and comfort all about you,
than you would be with a close room and crying children, and a husband
who couldn't support you. It isn't the _love_ I'm talking against. Oh!
no--thank heaven for that; but wait until you can see the prospect
clear for a comfortable living before you enter into a compact that may
bring much misery with it, and don't think that to be breaking your
hearts after the boys is of more importance than doing your duty in the
house of your employers. Nannie is growing to be quite a stout girl, and
perhaps Pat has a faint idea that she will make him a good wife one of
these days; but she does not dream of it, and only looks upon him as
Pat, yet. She never had a brother, so she can not estimate her regard
for him as a sister would; indeed she does not care to measure it any
way--why should she? the time has not come for this.
Pat looks at her rosy face as she sits across the table reading to them
evenings, and he can compare it to nothing excepting the beautiful waxen
figure he saw at some museum, a long time ago, and which has haunted him
ever since. He paid something for seeing that, but this is a free
blessing, which comes to him every evening, and the thoughts of it
lightens the toil through the day, and quickens the step homeward. No
wonder that he begins to feel that he must some day make sure that it
will always be so, and that he studies over it after the light is out
and the room is quiet, as he lies musing upon his restless couch.
Doesn't he see that she is prettier and prettier every day and doesn't
he know that there's many a boy that would be glad to call her "wife;"
and isn't he sure there'll be bloody times if any of them attempt to
take her from him! And as the sleep gets a faint mastery over him, and
he dreams of a tussle with Mike Dugan--all on Nannie's account--the
brawny arms strike outward, and the doubled fists come with such force
against the innocent plastering, as to bring Mrs. Bates's nightcap to
the bedroom door to see if thieves are breaking into the house.