Katie Robertson remained in the mill that Saturday afternoon, although her work had long been completed, till the bell rang for five o'clock, that being the hour for the Saturday dismissal. Then she said to Tessa:—
"Come and take a walk with me. There's a full hour before tea, and I don't believe you've ever seen the Fawn's Leap. Have you?"
"No," said her companion, "I have never been anywhere in Squantown. They would not let us go, in the poor-house, and since I've been in the mill I've been too tired after work was over."
"Are you very tired now?"
"Not so very; I did not sleep much last night."
"Was it a very interesting story?" said the other, archly.
"Oh, yes," said Tessa, becoming at once very much excited; "she, Amanda, I mean, married the most elegant count, and he took her to his castle, and she had pearls and diamonds and silks and satins, and never had to do a thing all the rest of her life; and only think, Katie, she was a mill-girl in the beginning, just like us." The sentence finished with a sigh.
"Would you like a count to come and carry you off to a castle by-and-by, and give you all those things?"
"Oh, indeed, yes; when the light goes out, and I can't read any more I lie awake thinking about it, and wondering if such a count will ever come along. He might, you know, any day."
"Does that make the mill seem any pleasanter in the morning?"