The rector took his daughter apart into the hall, and, after closing the door, told her the whole of Bess’s trouble. Dr. Sugg was a great man when giving voice to his opinions, and his daughter still believed him certain of a bishopric. Perhaps, also, it was Bess’s very virtuous disinclination to be married that impressed Miss Mary’s virgin heart. Besides, Richard Jeffray had promised the girl help, and poor Mary thought Mr. Richard one of the sweetest fellows in Christendom. Therefore, she kissed her father and declared that she approved heartily of his sentiments and his sensibility.
“Why should not the girl stay with us?” she said, of a sudden, her tired eyes brightening. “Now that Janet and Sarah have left us I should like some help, and I do not want to get a woman up from the village.”
Dr. Sugg slapped his thigh, and regarded Mary as though she were a genius.
“Bless my soul,” he said, “what a clodpoll I am, to be sure. The very thing, my dear. The wench has been clear of the fever, and if she will stay with us there is no need for me to ride to Beechhurst. Go in and talk to her yourself, Mary.”
Miss Sugg’s sallow face had flushed a little.
“To be sure,” she exclaimed, “she looks a very decent young woman, clean and capable. I am surprised, sir—”
“Surprised, Mary?” asked the rector, with an amused twinkle.
“That a girl out of Pevensel should look so neat and respectable.”
“Can any good thing come out of Nazareth, eh?”
“Egad, many good things do originate from Nazareth, my dear—more, I imagine, than from polite Jerusalem.”
Mary Sugg returned to the parlor, and confessed with some shy courtesy to Bess that the rector himself was in need of a servant. Could Bess cook and milk and mend stockings? Bess’s eyes were fixed searchingly on Miss Sugg’s face for the moment as though probing her sincerity. Contrasts that they were, there was a gentleness and an air of quiet sympathy about the parson’s daughter that appealed instinctively to the child of the woods. She met Mary’s offer in the spirit that prompted it, and thanked her with a tremulous light in her eyes.
“Madam,” she said, with simple stateliness, holding out her hand and making poor Mary look utterly commonplace, “I thank you for your kindness and your trust in me. I will serve you with all my heart.”