I remember eating sloes and crabs with a relish.
Do you remember the matted-up currant bushes, Margaret, at the corner of the west-wall in the garden at home?'
Did she not?
Did she not remember every weather-stain on the old stone wall; the gray and yellow lichens that marked it like a map; the little crane's-bill that grew in the crevices?
She had been shaken by the events of the last two days; her whole life just now was a strain upon her fortitude; and, somehow, these careless words of her father's, touching on the remembrance of the sunny times of old, made her start up, and, dropping her sewing on the ground, she went hastily out of the room into her own little chamber.
She had hardly given way to the first choking sob, when she became aware of Dixon standing at her drawers, and evidently searching for something.
'Bless me, miss!
How you startled me!
Missus is not worse, is she?
Is anything the matter?'
'No, nothing.
Only I'm silly, Dixon, and want a glass of water.
What are you looking for?
I keep my muslins in that drawer.'
Dixon did not speak, but went on rummaging.
The scent of lavender came out and perfumed the room.
At last Dixon found what she wanted; what it was Margaret could not see.
Dixon faced round, and spoke to her:
'Now I don't like telling you what I wanted, because you've fretting enough to go through, and I know you'll fret about this.
I meant to have kept it from you till night, may be, or such times as that.'
'What is the matter?
Pray, tell me, Dixon, at once.'
'That young woman you go to see—Higgins, I mean.'
'Well?'
'Well! she died this morning, and her sister is here—come to beg a strange thing.
It seems, the young woman who died had a fancy for being buried in something of yours, and so the sister's come to ask for it,—and I was looking for a night-cap that wasn't too good to give away.'
'Oh! let me find one,' said Margaret, in the midst of her tears.
'Poor Bessy!
I never thought I should not see her again.'
'Why, that's another thing.
This girl down-stairs wanted me to ask you, if you would like to see her.'
'But she's dead!' said Margaret, turning a little pale.
'I never saw a dead person.
No!
I would rather not.'
'I should never have asked you, if you hadn't come in.
I told her you wouldn't.'
'I will go down and speak to her,' said Margaret, afraid lest Dixon's harshness of manner might wound the poor girl.
So, taking the cap in her hand, she went to the kitchen.
Mary's face was all swollen with crying, and she burst out afresh when she saw Margaret.
'Oh, ma'am, she loved yo', she loved yo', she did indeed!' And for a long time, Margaret could not get her to say anything more than this.
At last, her sympathy, and Dixon's scolding, forced out a few facts.
Nicholas Higgins had gone out in the morning, leaving Bessy as well as on the day before.
But in an hour she was taken worse; some neighbour ran to the room where Mary was working; they did not know where to find her father; Mary had only come in a few minutes before she died.
'It were a day or two ago she axed to be buried in somewhat o' yourn.
She were never tired o' talking o' yo'.
She used to say yo' were the prettiest thing she'd ever clapped eyes on.
She loved yo' dearly Her last words were,
"Give her my affectionate respects; and keep father fro' drink."
Yo'll come and see her, ma'am.