'When did you write to Frederick, Margaret? Yesterday, or the day

before?' 'Yesterday, mamma.' 'Yesterday. And the letter went?' 'Yes. I took it myself' 'Oh, Margaret, I'm so afraid of his coming! If he should be

recognised! If he should be taken! If he should be executed,

after all these years that he has kept away and lived in safety!

I keep falling asleep and dreaming that he is caught and being

tried.' 'Oh, mamma, don't be afraid. There will be some risk no doubt;

but we will lessen it as much as ever we can. And it is so

little! Now, if we were at Helstone, there would be twenty--a

hundred times as much. There, everybody would remember him and if

there was a stranger known to be in the house, they would be sure

to guess it was Frederick; while here, nobody knows or cares for

us enough to notice what we do. Dixon will keep the door like a

dragon--won't you, Dixon--while he is here?' 'They'll be clever if they come in past me!' said Dixon, showing

her teeth at the bare idea.

'And he need not go out, except in the dusk, poor fellow!' 'Poor fellow!' echoed Mrs. Hale. 'But I almost wish you had not

written. Would it be too late to stop him if you wrote again,

Margaret?' 'I'm afraid it would, mamma,' said Margaret, remembering the

urgency with which she had entreated him to come directly, if he

wished to see his mother alive.

'I always dislike that doing things in such a hurry,' said Mrs.

Hale.

Margaret was silent.

'Come now, ma am,' said Dixon, with a kind of cheerful authority,

'you know seeing Master Frederick is just the very thing of all

others you're longing for. And I'm glad Miss Margaret wrote off

straight, without shilly-shallying. I've had a great mind to do

it myself. And we'll keep him snug, depend upon it. There's only

Martha in the house that would not do a good deal to save him on

a pinch; and I've been thinking she might go and see her mother

just at that very time. She's been saying once or twice she

should like to go, for her mother has had a stroke since she came

here, only she didn't like to ask. But I'll see about her being

safe off, as soon as we know when he comes, God bless him! So

take your tea, ma'am, in comfort, and trust to me.' Mrs. Hale did trust in Dixon more than in Margaret. Dixon's words

quieted her for the time. Margaret poured out the tea in silence,

trying to think of something agreeable to say; but her thoughts

made answer something like Daniel O'Rourke, when the

man-in-the-moon asked him to get off his reaping-hook. 'The more

you ax us, the more we won't stir.' The more she tried to think

of something anything besides the danger to which Frederick would

be exposed--the more closely her imagination clung to the

unfortunate idea presented to her. Her mother prattled with

Dixon, and seemed to have utterly forgotten the possibility of

Frederick being tried and executed--utterly forgotten that at her

wish, if by Margaret's deed, he was summoned into this danger.

Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities,

miserable probabilities, unfortunate chances of all kinds, as a

rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks light on some

combustible matter, they smoulder first, and burst out into a

frightful flame at last. Margaret was glad when, her filial

duties gently and carefully performed, she could go down into the

study. She wondered how her father and Higgins had got on.




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