Mary's absence was extremely inconvenient, as she was organist and
leader of the choir.
"So, Katie dear," she said, when she saw her patient on her legs
again, making friends with the last new kitten of the old cat, "you
will not mind being left alone, will you? It is only for the Litany
and catechising, you know."
Kate looked blank, and longed to ask that Sylvia might stay with her,
but did not venture; knowing that she was not ill enough for it to be
a necessity, and that no one in that house was ever kept from church,
except for some real and sufficient cause.
But the silly thoughts that passed through the little head in the
hour of solitude would fill two or three volumes. In the first
place, she was affronted. They made very little of her, considering
who she was, and how she had come to see them at all risks, and how
ill she had been! They would hardly have treated a little village
child so negligently as their visitor, the Countess -
Then her heart smote her. She remembered Mary's tender and assiduous
nursing all the morning, and how she had already stayed from service
and Sunday school; and she recollected her honour for her friends for
not valuing her for her rank; and in that mood she looked out the
Psalms and Lessons, which she had not been able to read in the
morning, and when she had finished them, began to examine the book-
case in search of a new, or else a very dear old, Sunday book.
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