'Yours sincerely, 'MARGARET HALE.' She set out again upon her travels through the house, turning
over articles, known to her from her childhood, with a sort of
caressing reluctance to leave them--old-fashioned, worn and
shabby, as they might be. But she hardly spoke again; and Dixon's
report to Mrs. Shaw was, that 'she doubted whether Miss Hale
heard a word of what she said, though she talked the whole time,
in order to divert her attention.' The consequence of being on
her feet all day was excessive bodily weariness in the evening,
and a better night's rest than she had had since she had heard of
Mr. Hale's death.
At breakfast time the next day, she expressed her wish to go and
bid one or two friends good-bye. Mrs. Shaw objected: 'I am sure, my dear, you can have no friends here with whom you
are sufficiently intimate to justify you in calling upon them so
soon; before you have been at church.' 'But to-day is my only day; if Captain Lennox comes this
afternoon, and if we must--if I must really go to-morrow----' 'Oh, yes; we shall go to-morrow. I am more and more convinced
that this air is bad for you, and makes you look so pale and ill;
besides, Edith expects us; and she may be waiting me; and you
cannot be left alone, my dear, at your age. No; if you must pay
these calls, I will go with you. Dixon can get us a coach, I
suppose?' So Mrs. Shaw went to take care of Margaret, and took her maid
with her to, take care of the shawls and air-cushions. Margaret's
face was too sad to lighten up into a smile at all this
preparation for paying two visits, that she had often made by
herself at all hours of the day. She was half afraid of owning
that one place to which she was going was Nicholas Higgins'; all
she could do was to hope her aunt would be indisposed to get out
of the coach, and walk up the court, and at every breath of wind
have her face slapped by wet clothes, hanging out to dry on ropes
stretched from house to house.
There was a little battle in Mrs. Shaw's mind between ease and a
sense of matronly propriety; but the former gained the day; and
with many an injunction to Margaret to be careful of herself, and
not to catch any fever, such as was always lurking in such
places, her aunt permitted her to go where she had often been
before without taking any precaution or requiring any permission.