“We have been advised to send you to a school where you would be made fit to provide for yourself when you become a woman,” continued the lady, “but we have decided to take you into our own house instead; on condition, however, that you try to be industrious and studious.  By the time you have grown up, I hope you will be able to make use of the good education we shall give you, and will have learned the value of independence.  Do you understand me completely, Hetty?  We are going to educate you to be a governess.  You shall live in our house and join in the studies of our children, and enjoy the comfort and protection of our home.  But of course you cannot look forward to sharing the future of our daughters.”

“I understand,” said Hetty slowly; and the whole state of the case, in all its bearings, appeared in true colours before her intelligent mind.

“I hope you are satisfied also,” said Mrs. Enderby, who was determined, even at the risk of being a little hard, that the child should thoroughly know her place, and learn to be grateful for the protection afforded her.  “When you are older, my child, you will comprehend what your elders now know, that my poor sister, Mrs. Rushton, made a great mistake in raising you from the station in which she found you, and showering luxuries upon you as she did.  We also see, however, that an injustice was done to you, and that we whom she has left behind her are bound to make amends to you for that.  Therefore it is that we are keeping you with ourselves, instead of allowing you to run the risk of being made unhappy by strangers.”

For all answer to this Hetty burst into a fit of wild weeping.  Her proud little heart was broken at the prospect of returning to Wavertree to be snubbed and humbled by Phyllis, and possibly by servants of the same disposition as Grant.  For the moment she could not remember all those worse horrors which her imagination had been conjuring up, and from which she was actually saved.  She stood trembling and shaking in the storm of her grief, trying to stem her floods of tears with her quivering little hands, and unable to keep them from raining through her fingers on to the floor.

Mrs. Enderby sighed.  Though she could not know all Hetty’s thoughts, she guessed some of them, and her heart sank lower than ever at the thought of the trouble which might come of the introduction of so stormy an element into her hitherto peaceful household.  However, she was not a woman to flinch from a duty, when once she had made up her mind to recognize it.

“Come, come, my child!” she said, “you have been passing through a great trial, but you must try to be brave and make yourself happy with us.”

Had Mrs. Enderby taken poor Hetty in her arms and given her a motherly kiss, much would have been done to heal the wounds made in the child’s sensitive heart.  But it was part of her plan, conscientiously made, that she must not accustom Hetty to caresses, such as she could not expect to receive later in life.  So she only patted her on the shoulder, and, when her passion of crying had a little subsided, bade her run away and get on her things, and be ready as soon as possible to come with her to Wavertree Hall.