Chapter 31 - Page 2

burst into tears. She had to try and think of little nothings to
say all breakfast-time, in order to prevent the recurrence of her
companions' thoughts too strongly to the last meal they bad taken
together, when there had been a continual strained listening for
some sound or signal from the sick-room.

After breakfast, she resolved to speak to her father, about the
funeral. He shook his head, and assented to all she proposed,
though many of her propositions absolutely contradicted one
another. Margaret gained no real decision from him; and was
leaving the room languidly, to have a consultation with Dixon,
when Mr. Hale motioned her back to his side.

'Ask Mr. Bell,' said he in a hollow voice.

'Mr. Bell!' said she, a little surprised. 'Mr. Bell of Oxford?'

'Mr. Bell,' he repeated. 'Yes. He was my groom's-man.'

Margaret understood the association.

'I will write to-day,' said she. He sank again into listlessness.
All morning she toiled on, longing for rest, but in a continual
whirl of melancholy business.

Towards evening, Dixon said to her:

'I've done it, miss. I was really afraid for master, that he'd
have a stroke with grief. He's been all this day with poor
missus; and when I've listened at the door, I've heard him
talking to her, and talking to her, as if she was alive. When I
went in he would be quite quiet, but all in a maze like. So I
thought to myself, he ought to be roused; and if it gives him a
shock at first, it will, maybe, be the better afterwards. So I've
been and told him, that I don't think it's safe for Master
Frederick to be here. And I don't. It was only on Tuesday, when I
was out, that I met-a Southampton man--the first I've seen since
I came to Milton; they don't make their way much up here, I
think. Well, it was young Leonards, old Leonards the draper's
son, as great a scamp as ever lived--who plagued his father
almost to death, and then ran off to sea. I never could abide
him. He was in the Orion at the same time as Master Frederick, I
know; though I don't recollect if he was there at the mutiny.'

'Did he know you?' said Margaret, eagerly.

'Why, that's the worst of it. I don't believe he would have known
me but for my being such a fool as to call out his name. He were
a Southampton man, in a strange place, or else I should never
have been so ready to call cousins with him, a nasty,
good-for-nothing fellow. Says he, "Miss Dixon! who would ha'
thought of seeing you here? But perhaps I mistake, and you're
Miss Dixon no longer?" So I told him he might still address me as
an unmarried lady, though if I hadn't been so particular, I'd had
good chances of matrimony. He was polite enough: "He couldn't
look at