“Do what I tell ’ee,” said Mrs. Frizzell, sternly, looking up from the parcel which she was unfastening, and fixing her eyes for the first time on the girl’s pale, agitated face.
“Mother, why have you got your blacks on?” cried Susan in sudden alarm. “And, oh! what’s that in your hand?”
“’Tis a bonnet, my dear, and you be to put it on. Now, Susan, I haven’t said one cross word to ’ee, and I bain’t a-goin’ to say a cross word to ’ee; and Father and me have a-made up our minds to stand by ’ee, and we’ll not let nobody go a-worrettin’ of ’ee, or a-castin’ up at ’ee about what’s past. If ye did deceive we, ye’ve a-been punished enough for’t.”
“Oh, dear! an’ that’s true,” wailed Susan; and she threw herself into her mother’s arms, her big, babyish, blue eyes drowned in tears; her poor head, with its crown of golden hair, hidden on the bosom where it had so often lain in innocent infancy. “I was a wicked girl to deceive ’ee and dear Father, as was always so good to me. But he—Jim—said I wasn’t to tell no one, or he’d be gettin’ into trouble, as we wasn’t on the strength!”
“And what mid that mean, my dear?”
“I don’t know, Mother. Some soldiers’ talk. Some of ’em has leave to get married, an’ some hasn’t.”
“Ah-h-h-h, ye mid ha’ knowed he was up to some tricks—ye couldn’t be married right that way. Why, where was your lines, my dear?”
“He said he was a-keepin’ them for me, an’ he took me to a kind o’ tin buildin’, an’ said it was the soldiers’ chapel, and he knowed I always went to chapel, so he wouldn’t ax me to be married in church; and there was another man there, as he said was the minister. And he put the ring on my finger—Jim did—he did indeed”—and here Susan raised her head to look earnestly in her mother’s face—“and he did say the words, and all.”
“There, there, no need to talk more on’t. Ye’ve been voolish, my maid, and he’ve a-been wicked; and you be left to pay for it all. But you’ve got Father and Mother to look to, and if you’ll do as I do bid ’ee, nobody need know o’ the trick as has been played on ’ee. There, slip on your dress, my dear, and pop this bonnet on, and–”
“Mother, ’tis a widow’s bonnet,” gasped Susan. “Oh, don’t—don’t make me wear a widow’s bonnet! Oh, I can’t bear the sight of en; it do seem so unlucky, so dreadful!”