Chapter 12 - Page 2

through the evening at her work; or, if she kept, by a strong effort, from pacing up and down the room, she felt as if she must sing to keep off thought while she sewed. And her songs were the maddest, merriest, she could think of. "Barbara Allen," and such sorrowful ditties, did well enough for happy times; but now she required all the aid that could be derived from external excitement to keep down the impulse of grief.

And her father, too--he was a great anxiety to her, he looked so changed and so ill. Yet he would not acknowledge to any ailment. She knew, that be it as late as it would, she never left off work until (if the poor servants paid her pretty regularly for the odd jobs of mending she did for them) she had earned a few pence, enough for one good meal for her father on the next day. But very frequently all she could do in the morning, after her late sitting up at night, was to run with the work home, and receive the money from the person for whom it was done. She could not stay often to make purchases of food, but gave up the money at once to her father's eager clutch; sometimes prompted by a savage hunger it is true, but more frequently by a craving for opium.

On the whole he was not so hungry as his daughter. For it was a long fast from the one o'clock dinner hour at Miss Simmonds' to the close of Mary's vigil, which was often extended to midnight. She was young, and had not yet learned to bear "clemming."

One evening, as she sang a merry song over her work, stopping occasionally to sigh, the blind Margaret came groping in. It had been one of Mary's additional sorrows that her friend had been absent from home, accompanying the lecturer on music in his round among the manufacturing towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Her grandfather, too, had seen this a good time for going his expeditions in search of specimens; so that the house had been shut up 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