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Neither recovered. The unwounded lady, sorely shaken, succumbed to the shock her nervous system had received; and Master Laurence, already petted and wilful, was left to be still farther spoiled by his widowed father and Kitty, his mother’s old nurse. Sally, strong of frame and will, impatient of pain and of restraint, was restive under the surgeons’ hands, and defeated their efforts to ascertain her injuries. She exhausted herself with shrieks and cries, tossed about and disturbed bandages, rejected physic, which she called “poison,” and soon put her case beyond the cure of physicians. Too late, she became sensible of her own folly. Then, when recovery was impossible, she repented of many misdeeds, and of none more than her slander of poor Bess.

And thus it was. When the mother was taken from the head of Cooper’s home, Bessy’s kind heart yearned to help the disconsolate man and his troop of children. Fortunately, the eldest was a girl of sixteen, and there was a younger girl of ten. Both of these had gone out to work, but now Molly had to stay at home and try to keep all right and tight there. And here Bess came to her aid. Without scolding or brawling, she put the girl into the way of doing things quickly and quietly. She encouraged her to persevere, so that her cleanly mother should detect no eyesores when she came home restored. She tried to persuade the boys to be less refractory—to help, not to irritate, their sister; and somehow Cooper’s home began to miss Sal, much as one misses a whirlwind.