“Oh, yes, we shall go to-morrow. I am more and more convinced that this air is bad for you, and makes you look so pale and ill; besides, Edith expects us; and she may be waiting for me; and you cannot be left alone, my dear, at your age. No; if you must make these calls, I will go with you. Dixon can get us a coach, I suppose?”
So Mrs. Shaw went to take care of Margaret and took her maid with her to take care of the shawls and air-cushions. Margaret’s face was too sad to lighten up into a smile at all this preparation for paying two visits, that she had often made by herself at all hours of the day. She was half afraid of owning that one place to which she was going was Nicholas Higgins’; all she could do was to hope her aunt would be indisposed to get out of the coach and walk up the court, and at every breath of wind have her face slapped by wet clothes, hanging out to dry on ropes stretched from house to house.
There was a little battle in Mrs. Shaw’s mind between ease and a sense of matronly propriety; but the former gained the day; and with many an injunction to Margaret to be careful of herself, and not to catch any fever, such as was always lurking in such places, her aunt permitted her to go where she had often been before without taking any precaution or requiring any permission.
Nicholas was out; only Mary and one or two of the Boucher children at home. Margaret was vexed with herself for not having timed her visit better. Mary had a very blunt intellect, although her feelings were warm and kind; and the instant she understood what Margaret’s purpose was in coming to see them, she began to cry and sob with so little restraint that Margaret found it useless to say any of the thousand little things which had suggested themselves to her as she was coming along in the coach. She could only try to comfort her a little by suggesting the vague chance of their meeting again, at some possible time, in some possible place, and bid her tell her father how much she wished, if he could manage it, that he should come to see her when he had done his work in the evening.
As she was leaving the place, she stopped and looked around; then hesitated a little before she said:
“I should like to have some little thing to remind me of Bessy.”
Instantly Mary’s generosity was keenly alive. What could they give? And on Margaret’s singling out a little common drinking-cup, which she remembered as the one always standing by Bessy’s side with a drink for her feverish lips, Mary said:
“Oh, take summat better; that only cost fourpence!”
“That will do, thank you,” said Margaret; and she went quickly away, while the light caused by the pleasure of having something to give yet lingered on Mary’s face.
“Now to Mrs. Thornton’s,” thought she to herself. “It must be done.” But she looked rather rigid and pale at the thoughts of it, and had hard work to find the exact words in which to explain to her aunt who Mrs. Thornton was, and why she should go to bid her farewell.