"No; do tell me. What were you fretting about, first place?"
"I can't tell you just now; perhaps I may sometime."
"When?"
"Perhaps this very evening, if it rises in my heart; perhaps never. It's a fear that sometimes I can't abide to think about, and sometimes I don't like to think on any thing else. Well, I was fretting about this fear, and Alice comes in for something, and finds me crying. I would not tell her no more than I would you, Mary; so she says, 'Well, dear, you must mind this, when you're going to fret and be low about any thing, "An anxious mind is never a holy mind."' Oh, Mary, I have so often checked my grumbling sin' [9] she said that."
| Footnote 9: |
"Sin'," since. "Sin that his lord was
twenty yere of age." Prologue to Canterbury Tales. [(Return)] |
The weary sound of stitching was the only sound heard for a little while, till Mary inquired,
"Do you expect to get paid for this mourning?"
"Why I do not much think I shall. I've thought it over once or twice, and I mean to bring myself to think I shan't, and to like to do it as my bit towards comforting them. I don't think they can pay, and yet they're just the sort of folk to have their minds easier for wearing mourning. There's only one thing I dislike making black for, it does so hurt the eyes."
Margaret put down her work with a sigh, and shaded her eyes. Then she assumed a cheerful tone, and said,
"You'll not have to wait long, Mary, for my secret's on the tip of my tongue. Mary! do you know I sometimes think I'm growing a little blind, and then what would become of grandfather and me? Oh, God help me, Lord help me!"