Hetty, now above eleven years old, was very much grown and altered. Her once short curly hair was long, and tied back from her face with a plain black ribbon. Her face was singularly intelligent, her voice clear and quick, her eyes often much too mournful for the eyes of a child, but sometimes flashing with fun, as, for instance, when Mark engaged her in some piece of drollery. Then the old spirit that she used to display when she performed her little mimicries for Mrs. Rushton's amusement would spring up in her again, and she would take great delight in seeing Mark roll about with laughing, and hearing him declare that she was the jolliest girl in the world.
One Easter time, just two years after Hetty's return to the Hall, when Mark was at home for his holidays, he proposed to Hetty to play a trick on Miss Davis. Hetty's eyes danced at the thought of a trick of any kind. She did not have much fun as a rule, and Mark's tricks were always so funny.
"It isn't to be a bad trick, I hope," she said, however.
"Oh! no, not at all. Only to dress up and pretend to be people from her own part of the world coming to see her and to bring her news. We will be an old couple who know her friends, and are passing this way."
"She will find us out."
"No; we must come in the twilight and go away very soon. She will be so astounded by what I shall tell her that she won't think about us at all."
"What will you tell her?"
"Oh! news about her old uncle. She has a rich uncle and she expects to be his heiress. Somebody told me of it. I will tell her he is married, and you will see what a state she will be in."
"I don't believe Miss Davis wants anybody's money," said Hetty; "she works hard for herself, and I think she supports her mother. I shall have to work some day as she does, and I mean to copy her. Only I shall have no mother to support," said Hetty, swallowing a little sigh because Mark could not bear her to be sentimental.
"Oh! well, we shall have some fun at all events," said Mark; "and don't you go spoiling it, proving that Miss Davis is a saint."