'I'm afraid you are not very strong.' 'No,' said the girl, 'nor never will be.' 'Spring is coming,' said Margaret, as if to suggest pleasant,
hopeful thoughts.
'Spring nor summer will do me good,' said the girl quietly.
Margaret looked up at the man, almost expecting some
contradiction from him, or at least some remark that would modify
his daughter's utter hopelessness. But, instead, he added-'I'm afeared hoo speaks truth. I'm afeared hoo's too far gone in
a waste.' 'I shall have a spring where I'm boun to, and flowers, and
amaranths, and shining robes besides.' 'Poor lass, poor lass!' said her father in a low tone. 'I'm none
so sure o' that; but it's a comfort to thee, poor lass, poor
lass. Poor father! it'll be soon.' Margaret was shocked by his words--shocked but not repelled;
rather attracted and interested.
'Where do you live? I think we must be neighbours, we meet so
often on this road.' 'We put up at nine Frances Street, second turn to th' left at
after yo've past th' Goulden Dragon.' 'And your name? I must not forget that.' 'I'm none ashamed o' my name. It's Nicholas Higgins. Hoo's called
Bessy Higgins. Whatten yo' asking for?' Margaret was surprised at this last question, for at Helstone it
would have been an understood thing, after the inquiries she had
made, that she intended to come and call upon any poor neighbour
whose name and habitation she had asked for.
'I thought--I meant to come and see you.' She suddenly felt
rather shy of offering the visit, without having any reason to
give for her wish to make it, beyond a kindly interest in a
stranger. It seemed all at once to take the shape of an
impertinence on her part; she read this meaning too in the man's
eyes.
'I'm none so fond of having strange folk in my house.' But then
relenting, as he saw her heightened colour, he added, 'Yo're a
foreigner, as one may say, and maybe don't know many folk here,
and yo've given my wench here flowers out of yo'r own hand;--yo
may come if yo like.' Margaret was half-amused, half-nettled at this answer. She was
not sure if she would go where permission was given so like a
favour conferred. But when they came to the town into Frances
Street, the girl stopped a minute, and said, 'Yo'll not forget yo're to come and see us.' 'Aye, aye,' said the father, impatiently, 'hoo'll come. Hoo's a
bit set up now, because hoo thinks I might ha' spoken more
civilly; but hoo'll think better on it, and come. I can read her
proud bonny face like a book. Come along, Bess; there's the mill
bell ringing.' Margaret went home, wondering at her new friends, and smiling at
the man's insight into what had been passing in her mind. From
that day Milton became a brighter place to her. It was not the
long, bleak sunny days of spring, nor yet was it that time was
reconciling her to the town of her habitation. It was that in it
she had found a human interest.