Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. II, 1855.djvu/267

 ing, and petting, and sighing "I-told-you-so's," from her aunt. Dixon said she was quite as bad as she had been on the first day she heard of her father's death; and she and Mrs. Shaw consulted as to the desirableness of delaying the morrow's journey. But when her aunt reluctantly proposed a few days' delay to Margaret, the latter writhed her body as if in acute suffering, and said:

"Oh! let us go. I cannot be patient here. I shall not get well here. I want to forget."

So the arrangements went on; and Captain Lennox came, and with him news of Edith and the little boy; and Margaret found that the indifferent, careless conversation of one who, however kind, was not too warm and anxious a sympathiser, did her good. She roused up; and by the time that she knew she might expect Higgins, she was able to leave the room quietly, and await in her own chamber the expected summons.

"Eh!" said he, as she came in, "to think of th' oud gentleman dropping off as he did! Yo' might ha' knocked me down wi' a straw when they telled me. "Mr. Hale?' said I; 'him as was th' parson?' 'Ay,' said they. 'Then,' said I, 'there's as good a man gone as ever lived on this earth, let who will be t' other!' And I came to see yo', and tell yo' how grieved I were, but them women in th' kitchen wouldn't tell yo' I were there. They said yo' were ill,—and butter me, but yo' dunnot look like th' same wench. And yoʻre going to be a grand lady up i' Lunnon, aren't yo'?"

"Not a grand lady," said Margaret, half smiling.

"Well! Thornton said—says he, a day or two