Part 12 (1/2)
And in this shock of grief, Sally Leadbitter was the last person she wished to see. However, she rose to welcome her, betraying her tear-swollen face.
”Well, I shall tell Mr. Carson to-morrow how you're fretting for him; it's no more nor he's doing for you, I can tell you.”
”For him, indeed!” said Mary, with a toss of her pretty head.
”Ay, miss, for him! You've been sighing as if your heart would break now for several days, over your work; now arn't you a little goose not to go and see one who I am sure loves you as his life, and whom you love; 'How much, Mary?' 'This much,' as the children say”
(opening her arms very wide).
”Nonsense,” said Mary, pouting; ”I often think I don't love him at all.”
”And I'm to tell him that, am I, next time I see him?” asked Sally.
”If you like,” replied Mary. ”I'm sure I don't care for that or anything else now”; weeping afresh.
But Sally did not like to be the bearer of any such news. She saw she had gone on the wrong tack, and that Mary's heart was too full to value either message or letter as she ought. So she wisely paused in their delivery and said, in a more sympathetic tone than she had hitherto used--
”Do tell me, Mary, what's fretting you so? You know I never could abide to see you cry.”
”George Wilson's dropped down dead this afternoon,” said Mary, fixing her eyes for one minute on Sally, and the next hiding her face in her ap.r.o.n as she sobbed anew.
”Dear, dear! All flesh is gra.s.s; here to-day and gone tomorrow, as the Bible says. Still he was an old man, and not good for much; there's better folk than him left behind. Is th' canting old maid as was his sister alive yet?”
”I don't know who you mean,” said Mary sharply; for she did know, and did not like to have her dear, simple Alice so spoken of.
”Come, Mary, don't be so innocent. Is Miss Alice Wilson alive, then; will that please you? I haven't seen her hereabouts lately.”
”No, she's left living here. When the twins died, she thought she could, maybe, be of use to her sister, who was sadly cast down, and Alice thought she could cheer her up; at any rate she could listen to her when her heart grew overburdened; so she gave up her cellar and went to live with them.”
”Well, good go with her. I'd no fancy for her, and I'd no fancy for her making my pretty Mary into a Methodee.”
”She wasn't a Methodee; she was Church o' England.”
”Well, well, Mary, you're very particular. You know what I meant.
Look, who is this letter from?” holding up Henry Carson's letter.
”I don't know, and don't care,” said Mary, turning very red.
”My eye! as if I didn't know you did know and did care.”
”Well, give it me,” said Mary impatiently, and anxious in her present mood for her visitor's departure.
Sally relinquished it unwillingly. She had, however, the pleasure of seeing Mary dimple and blush as she read the letter, which seemed to say the writer was not indifferent to her.
”You must tell him I can't come,” said Mary, raising her eyes at last. ”I have said I won't meet him while father is away, and I won't.”
”But, Mary, he does so look for you. You'd be quite sorry for him, he's so put out about not seeing you. Besides, you go when your father's at home, without letting on* to him, and what harm would there be in going now?”
*Letting on; informing. In Anglo-Saxon one meaning of ”laetan”
was ”to admit,” and we say ”to let out the secret.”
”Well, Sally, you know my answer, I won't; and I won't.”