for several weeks.
“O Margaret, Margaret! how glad I am to see you. Take care. There now, you’re all right, that’s father’s chair. Sit down.”—She kissed her over and over again.
“It seems like the beginning o’ brighter times, to see you again, Margaret. Bless you! And how well you look!”
“Doctors always send ailing folk for change of air: and you know I’ve had plenty o’ that same lately.”
“You’ve been quite a traveller for sure! Tell us all about it, do, Margaret. Where have you been to, first place?”
“Eh, lass, that would take a long time to tell. Half o’er the world, I sometimes think. Bolton and Bury, and Owdham, and Halifax, and—but Mary, guess who I saw there? Maybe you know, though, so it’s not fair guessing.”
“No, I dunnot. Tell me, Margaret, for I cannot abide waiting and guessing.”
“Well, one night as I were going fra’ my lodgings wi’ the help on a lad as belonged to th’ landlady, to find the room where I were to sing, I heard a cough before me, walking along. Thinks I, that’s Jem Wilson’s cough, or I’m much mistaken. Next time came a sneeze and cough, and then I were certain. First I hesitated whether I should speak, thinking if it were a stranger he’d maybe think me forrard. But I knew blind folks must not be nesh about using their tongues, so says I, ‘Jem Wilson, is that you?’ And sure enough it was, and nobody else. Did you know he were in Halifax, Mary?”
“No,” she answered, faintly and sadly; for Halifax was all the same to her heart as the Antipodes; equally inaccessible by humble penitent looks and maidenly tokens of love.
“Well, he’s there, however: he’s putting up an engine for some folks there, for his master. He’s doing well, for he’s getten four or five men under him; we’d two or three meetings, and he telled me all about his invention for doing away wi’ the crank, or somewhat. His master’s bought it from him, and ta’en out a patent, and Jem’s a gentleman for life wi’ the money his master gied him. But you’ll ha’ heard all this, Mary?”
No! she had not.
“Well, I thought it all happened afore he left Manchester, and then in course you’d ha’ known. But maybe it were all settled after he got to Halifax; however, he’s gotten two or three hunder pounds for his invention. But what’s up with you, Mary? you’re sadly out of sorts. You’ve never been quarrelling wi’ Jem, surely?”
Now Mary cried outright; she was weak in body, and unhappy in mind, and the time was come when she might have the relief of telling her grief. She could not bring herself to confess how much of her sorrow was caused by her having been vain and foolish; she hoped that need never be known, and she could not bear to think of it.
“O Margaret! do you know Jem came here one night when I were put out, and cross. Oh, dear! dear! I could bite my tongue out when I think on it. And he told me how he loved me, and I thought I did not love him, and I told him I didn’t; and, Margaret,—he believed me, and went away so sad, and so angry; and now, I’d do anything—I would indeed”; her sobs choked the end of her sentence. Margaret looked at her with sorrow, but with hope; for she had no doubt in her own mind, that it was only a temporary estrangement,
“Tell me, Margaret,” said Mary, taking her apron down from her eyes, and looking at Margaret with eager anxiety, “what can I do to bring him back to me? Should I write to him?”
“No,” replied her friend, “that would not do. Men are so queer, they like to have a’ the courting to themselves.”
“But I did not mean to write him a courting letter,” said Mary, somewhat indignantly.
“If you wrote at all, it would be to give him a hint you’d taken the rue, and would be very glad to have him now. I believe now he’d rather find that out himself.”
“But he won’t try,” said Mary, sighing. “How can he find it out when he’s at Halifax?”
“If he’s a will he’s a way, depend upon it. And you would not have him if he’s not a will to you, Mary! No, dear!” changing her tone from the somewhat hard way in which sensible people too often speak, to the soft accents of tenderness which come with such peculiar grace from them, “you must just wait and be patient. You may depend upon it, all will end well, and better than if you meddled in it now.”
“But it’s so hard to be patient,” pleaded Mary.
“Ay, dear; being patient is the hardest work we, any of us, have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more difficult than doing. I’ve known that about my sight, and many a one has known it in watching the sick; but it’s one of God’s lessons we all must learn, one way or another.” After a pause—”Have ye been to see his mother of late?”
“No; not for some weeks. When last I went she was so frabbit with me, that I really thought she wished I’d keep away.”
“Well! if I were you I’d go. Jem will hear on’t, and it will do you far more good in his mind than writing a letter, which, after all, you would find a tough piece of work when you came to settle to it. ‘T would be hard to say neither too much nor too little. But I must be going, grandfather is at home, and it’s our first night together, and he must not be sitting wanting me any longer.”
She rose up from her seat, but still delayed going.
“Mary! I’ve somewhat else I want to say to you, and I don’t rightly know how to begin. You see, grandfather and I know what bad times is, and we know your father is out of work, and I’m getting more money than I can well manage; and, dear, would you just take this bit o’ gold, and pay me back in good times?” The tears stood in Margaret’s eyes as she spoke.
“Dear Margaret, we’re not so bad pressed as that.” (The thought of her father and his ill looks, and his one meal a day, rushed upon Mary.) “And yet, dear, if it would not put you out o’ your way—I would work hard to make it up to you;—but would not your grandfather be vexed?”
“Not he, wench! It were more his thought than mine, and we have gotten ever so many more at home, so don’t
