“Mary!”
“Ah, you may Mary as long as you like, but I’ve seen you do it.”
“Hush! pray don’t, Mary; he’ll hear you.”
“Not he, my dear. Poor boy! he’s dropped off asleep, and the best thing too. You’re asleep, aren’t you?”
I tried to answer “No,” but the faint deathly feeling came over me again as strongly as ever, and all seemed dark and silent once more.
It was getting dark when I awoke; for, from fainting, I must have lapsed into a heavy sleep, the result of exhaustion and the shock. My head ached, and I was very stiff and in great pain as I tried to raise myself from the pillow which propped me up in the great Windsor chair. Mary was seated opposite to me, crooning some ditty in a low voice as she sat sewing, the needle clicking against her thimble as she thrust it through the work.
The fire was burning brightly, the tea-things on the table, the pot on the hob, and some buttered toast upon the fender.
As I was gazing at her, and noticing the play of the flames over her red and rugged countenance, she suddenly raised her eyes, gazed full at me, and the harsh repulsive look passed away as she showed a set of white teeth in a pleasant smile, and rose and came to me, bending down and laying her hand upon my burning forehead.
“You won’t want no doctor,” she said; and to my utter astonishment she bent lower, kissed me, and then softly patted my cheek. “Poor boy,” she said, “it was a shame!”
I gazed up piteously and wildly, I believe, in her face, for it was so strange. She had always been so rough and harsh towards me, and her frequent donations of bread and butter seemed to have been given to me more out of spite to her employers than out of kindness to me; but now it was plain enough that under her rugged crust she possessed a true woman’s nature, and the ill-treatment I had received had completely made her my friend.