Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. II, 1855.djvu/301

 times rose up, and she thought of them, and her eyes filled with tears, till all at once there was a pause-one of the girls was stumbling over the apparently simple word "a," uncertain what to call it.

“A, an indefinite article," said Margaret, mildly.

"I beg your pardon," said the Vicar's wife, all eyes and ears; "but we are taught by Mr. Milsome to call 'a' an—who can remember?"

"An adjective absolute," said half-a-dozen voices at once. And Margaret sate abashed. The children knew more than she did. Mr. Bell turned away, and smiled.

Margaret spoke no more during the lesson. But after it was over, she went quietly round to one or two old favourites, and talked to them a little. They were growing out of children into great girls; passing out of her recollection in their rapid development, as she, by her three years' absence, was vanishing from theirs. Still she was glad to have seen them all again, though a tinge of sadness mixed itself with her pleasure. When school was over for the day, it was yet early in the summer afternoon; and Mrs. Hepworth proposed to Margaret that she and Mr. Bell should accompany her to the parsonage, and see the—the word "improvements" had half slipped out of her mouth, but she substituted the more cautious term "alterations" which the present Vicar was making. Margaret did not care a straw about seeing the alterations, which jarred upon her fond recollection of what her home had been; but she longed to see the old place once more, even though she shivered away from the pain which she knew she should feel.