'Who, o' course Mr Clennam. He's in your father's room, and he says to

me, Maggy, will you be so kind and go and say it's only me.'

'I am not very well, Maggy. I had better not go. I am going to lie down.

See! I lie down now, to ease my head. Say, with my grateful regard, that

you left me so, or I would have come.' 'Well, it an't very polite though, Little Mother,' said the staring

Maggy, 'to turn your face away, neither!'

Maggy was very susceptible to personal slights, and very ingenious in

inventing them. 'Putting both your hands afore your face too!' she went

on. 'If you can't bear the looks of a poor thing, it would be better to

tell her so at once, and not go and shut her out like that, hurting her

feelings and breaking her heart at ten year old, poor thing!'

'It's to ease my head, Maggy.' 'Well, and if you cry to ease your head, Little Mother, let me cry too.

Don't go and have all the crying to yourself,' expostulated Maggy, 'that

an't not being greedy.' And immediately began to blubber.

It was with some difficulty that she could be induced to go back with

the excuse; but the promise of being told a story--of old her great

delight--on condition that she concentrated her faculties upon the

errand and left her little mistress to herself for an hour longer,

combined with a misgiving on Maggy's part that she had left her good

temper at the bottom of the staircase, prevailed. So away she went,

muttering her message all the way to keep it in her mind, and, at the

appointed time, came back.

'He was very sorry, I can tell you,' she announced, 'and wanted to send

a doctor. And he's coming again to-morrow he is and I don't think he'll

have a good sleep to-night along o' hearing about your head, Little

Mother. Oh my! Ain't you been a-crying!' 'I think I have, a little, Maggy.'

'A little! Oh!' 'But it's all over now--all over for good, Maggy. And my head is much

better and cooler, and I am quite comfortable. I am very glad I did not

go down.' Her great staring child tenderly embraced her; and having smoothed her

hair, and bathed her forehead and eyes with cold water (offices in which

her awkward hands became skilful), hugged her again, exulted in her

brighter looks, and stationed her in her chair by the window. Over

against this chair, Maggy, with apoplectic exertions that were not

at all required, dragged the box which was her seat on story-telling

occasions, sat down upon it, hugged her own knees, and said, with a

voracious appetite for stories, and with widely-opened eyes:




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