“Morris! where is she going?”
Margaret related this piece of domestic news, too private to be told to any one else till the last moment. Maria forgot her own troubles, or despised them as she listened, so grieved was she for her friends, including Morris. Margaret was not very sorry on Morris’s own account. Morris wanted rest—an easier place. She had had too much upon her for some time past.
“What then will you have, when she is gone?”
“If I have work enough to drive all thought out of my head, I shall be thankful. Meantime, I will bestow my best wit upon your case.”
“I am ashamed of my case already. While sitting in all this comfort here, I can hardly believe in my own tremors, of no earlier date than last night. Come, let us draw to the fire. I hope we shall not end with sitting up all night; but I feel as if I should like it very much.”
Margaret stirred up a blaze, and put out the candles. No economy was now beneath her care. As she took her seat beside her friend, she said:
“Maria, did you ever know any place so dull and dismal as Deerbrook is now? Is it not enough to make any heart as heavy as the fortunes of the place?”
“Even the little that I see of it, in going to and from the Greys, looks sad enough. You see the outskirts, which I suppose are worse still.”
“The very air feels too heavy to breathe. The cottages, and even the better houses, appear to my eyes damp and weather-stained on the outside, and silent within. The children sit shivering on the thresholds—do not they?—instead of shouting at their play as they did. Every one looks discontented, and complains—the poor of want of bread, and every one else of hard times, and all manner of woes, that one never hears of in prosperous seasons. Mr James says the actions for trespass are beyond all example; Mr Tucker declares his dog, that died the other day, was poisoned; and I never pass the Green but the women are even quarrelling for precedence at the pump.”
“I have witnessed some of this, but not all: and neither, I suspect, have you, Margaret, though you think you have. We see the affairs of the world in shadow, you know, when our own hearts are sad.”