Next morning, she started up instantly at Mrs. Williams’ impatient call.  She could hardly get ready quick enough to satisfy her mistress, and had no time to kneel down and ask her heavenly Father’s help for the duties of the day.  Mrs. Williams had not thought of this need for herself, and still less for her little handmaid.  She found there was plenty of work before her, independently of the boots that remained to be cleaned.  By the time she had got through, the bells were ringing for church, and it was time to think of getting the dinner ready, the boarders dining early on Sunday.  Mrs. Williams was not going to church herself.  The gentlemen always expected the dinner to be especially good on that day, without much consideration what the cook’s Sunday might be; and it was much too important a matter to be left to Nelly’s inexperienced hands.  But during the time when her mistress was occupied in helping her daughter to dress her hair elaborately for church, Nelly found a little quiet time to read part of a chapter, and learn a verse, and ask God’s help to do right during the day, and to remember that it was His day, the best of all the week.

So prepared, she found the difficult task of performing unaccustomed duties to her mistress’s satisfaction easier than it might otherwise have been.  For why should we consider anything too small to seek His aid, by whom the hairs of our head are all numbered?  And the very attitude of trust and reliance on Him calms and clears the mind, and strengthens the heart.

There was no time for Nelly to go to church on that Sunday, at any rate.  She could not get through her work with her comparatively unpractised hands, and it was with a very weary body and mind that she read her evening verse, and repeated her favourite hymn, “I lay my sins on Jesus,” as a sort of substitute for her usual Sunday school lessons, and then lay down to think of the kind friends she had left, and to wonder when she should see Miss Lucy, till she fell asleep to dream that she was at the farm again, and churning butter that would not come.

Bessie had written to Lucy, telling her of Nelly’s departure, but had forgotten to give her mistress’s address, so that Lucy could not find her out till she should go to see her at Mr. Brooke’s; and for many days this was impracticable.  Day after day passed, filled with the same unceasing routine of drudgery; and though her growing skill enabled her to get through her work more quickly, this did not add to her leisure, since, as her capabilities increased, her duties increased also.  Miss Williams, too, who objected to do anything for herself when another could be got to do it, found Nelly very convenient for all sorts of personal services.

Nelly went through it all without grumbling, though she often went to bed quite tired out.  But youth and health came to her aid, and she would wake in the morning to go singing about her work.  She had an uncommonly sweet voice, and the boarders used often to remark to each other that there was more music in her untaught snatches of song than in all Miss Williams’ attempts at the piano.