THE year was passing on; day after day, week after week, month after month, following each other in quick succession, and Marjorie was keeping a private calendar of her own, and counting the days that must still pass before Christmas came, when she was to go home for her first holiday.
Daisy Bank did not alter much with the changing seasons: there was very little to mark the progression of spring, summer, and autumn. Barely a tree was in sight, and the few that were to be found were so stunted, blighted, and covered with smoke that the spring freshness of their leaves lasted but a few days. Upon the mounds grew a few coarse daisies—at least, the children called them daisies; they were a kind of feverfew with a daisy-like flower. Nothing else would grow there, which is perhaps why the place got its name, a name which had at first appeared to Marjorie to be utterly unsuitable.
During all the summer months and throughout the early autumn, her life had been most uneventful and monotonous. There was the daily routine of household duties, "the common round, the daily task," but nothing more. No one else came to see her, and from that day in June, when he had stepped into the Birmingham train, she had seen and heard nothing more of Captain Fortescue. She always thought of him by his old name, even though she knew that he had dropped the title.
The arrival of the home letters was the great event of Marjorie's week, and she read and re-read them until she almost knew them by heart. They made her home-sick at times, but she fought bravely against the feeling, and looked on hopefully to Christmas.
All this time, old Mrs. Hotchkiss had been growing more and more feeble, and as autumn advanced, she was quite unable to leave her bed. A rough girl of sixteen, who lived next door, waited upon her, and she seemed to have plenty of money to pay her, and she was never behind-hand in her rent. How she lived, Enoch did not know; he told Marjorie that she used to be very badly off, and that he had often seen her scraping up the cinders on the ash-heaps, but he fancied that now Carrie must be sending her money, as she seemed to have sufficient for all she wanted. Marjorie often took her soup, and milk puddings, which Mrs. Holtby was pleased that she should make for her, and she was always grateful for these. She much enjoyed hearing Marjorie read, and a feeble glimmer of light seemed to have penetrated to her poor dark soul.
But one day, late in October, when Marjorie went to see her, she found the old woman crying and evidently in great trouble.
"What is it, Mother Hotchkiss?"
"The doctor has been," she said, "and he says as how I won't be long now. I heard him tell Anna Maria when she let him out."
"Well, don't cry," said Marjorie; "you know what I told you when I was here last."
"Yes, I think of it all the time."