“Oh!” exclaimed Mary, “then I shall see him! I never thought I should see Dickon.”

“Does tha’ want to see him?” asked Martha suddenly, for Mary had looked so pleased.

“Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see him very much.”

Martha gave a little start, as if she remembered something.

“Now to think,” she broke out, “to think o’ me forgettin’ that there; an’ I thought I was goin’ to tell you first thing this mornin’. I asked mother—and she said she’d ask Mrs. Medlock her own self.”

“Do you mean—” Mary began.

“What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might be driven over to our cottage some day and have a bit o’ mother’s hot oat cake, an’ butter, an’ a glass o’ milk.”

It seemed as if all the interesting things were happening in one day. To think of going over the moor in the daylight and when the sky was blue! To think of going into the cottage which held twelve children!

“Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?” she asked, quite anxiously.

“Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what a tidy woman mother is and how clean she keeps the cottage.”