"You were very ready to send a new patient to Mr Walcot, Morris," said Margaret, smiling.

"I had a fancy that it was a sort of patient that my master would not be the better for," replied Morris. "I did not like the looks of the person."

"Nor I," said Maria.

The drawing-room door was heard to open, and Morris put her finger on her lips. Hester had been alone nearly ten minutes; she was growing nervous, and wanted to know what all this talking in the hall was about.

She was told that Mr Hope had been inquired for, about a sick baby; and the rest of the discourse went to the account of Maria's unexpected arrival. Hester welcomed Maria kindly, ordered up the cold pheasant and the wine, and then, leaving the friends to enjoy themselves over the fire, retired to rest. Morris was desired to go too, as she still slept in her mistress's room, and ought to keep early hours, since, in addition to her labours of the day, she was at the baby's call in the night. Margaret would see her friend to her room. Morris must not remain up on their account.

"How comfortable this is!" cried Maria, in a gleeful tone, as she looked round upon the crackling fire, the tray, the wine, and her companion.

"How unlooked for, to pa.s.s a whole evening and night without being afraid of anything!"

"What an admission from you!--that you are afraid of something every night."

"That is just the plain truth. When I used to read about the horrors of living in a solitary house in the country, I little thought how much of the same terror I should feel from living solitary in a house in a village. You wonder what could happen to me, I dare say; and perhaps it would not be very easy to suppose any peril which would stand examination."

"I was going to say that you and we are particularly safe, from being so poor that there is no inducement to rob us. We and you have neither money nor jewels, nor plate, that can tempt thieves!--for our few forks and spoons are hardly worth breaking into a house for."

"People who want bread, however, may think it worth while to break in for that: and while our thieves are this sort of people, and not the London gentry whom Sydney is so fond of talking of, it may be enough that gentlemen and ladies live in houses to make the starving suppose that they shall find something valuable there."

"They would soon learn better if they came here. I doubt whether, when you and I have done our supper, they would find anything to eat. But how do you show your terrors, I should like to know? Do you scream?"

"I never screamed in my life, as far as I remember. Screaming appears to me the most unnatural of human sounds. I never felt the slightest inclination to express myself in that manner."

"Nor I: but I never said so, because I thought no one would believe me."

"No: the true mood for these doleful winter nights is, to sit trying to read, but never able to fix your attention for five minutes, for some odd noise or another. And yet it is almost worse to hear nothing but a cinder falling on the hearth now and then, startling you like a pistol-shot. Then it seems as if somebody was opening the shutter outside, and then tapping at the window. I have got so into the habit of looking at the window at night, expecting to see a face squeezed flat against the pane, that I have yielded up my credit to myself, and actually have the blinds drawn down when the outside shutters are closed."

"How glad I am to find you are no braver than the rest of us!"

"No; do not be glad. It is very painful, night after night. Every step clinks or craunches in the farrier's yard, you know. This ought to be a comfort: but sometimes I cannot clearly tell where the sound comes from.

More than once lately I have fancied it was behind me, and have turned round in a greater hurry than you would think I could use. My rooms are a good way from the rest of the house; you remember the length of the pa.s.sage between. I do not like disturbing the family in the evenings; but I have been selfish enough to ring, once or twice this week, without any sufficient reason, just for the sake of a sight of my landlady."

"A very sufficient reason. But I had no idea of all this from you."

"You have heard me say some fine things about the value of time to me-- about the blessings of my long evenings. For all that (true as it is), I have got into the way of going to bed soon after ten, just because I know every one else in the house is in bed, and I do not like to be the only person up."

"That is the reason why you are looking so well, notwithstanding all these terrors. But, Maria, what has become of your bravery?"

"It is just where it was. I am no more afraid than I used to be of evils which may be met with a mature mind: and just as much afraid as ever of those which terrified my childhood."

"Our baby shall never be afraid of anything," a.s.serted Margaret. "But Maria, something must be done for your relief."

"That is just what I hoped and expected you would say, and the reason why I exposed myself to you."

"Why do not the Greys offer you a room there for the winter? That seems the simplest and most obvious plan."

"It is not convenient."

"How should that be?"

"The bed would have to be uncovered, you know; and the mahogany wash-stand might be splashed."

"They can get a room ready for a guest, to relieve their own fears, but not yours. Can nothing be done about it?"

"Not unless the Rowlands should take in Mr Walcot, because he is afraid to live alone: in such case, the Greys would take me in for the same reason. But that will not be so, Margaret, I will ask you plainly, and you will answer as plainly--could you, without too much pain, trouble, and inconvenience, spend an evening or two a week with me, just till this panic is pa.s.sed? If you could put it in my power to be always looking forward to an evening of relief, it would break the sense of solitude, and make all the difference to me. I see the selfishness of this; but I really think it is better to own my weakness than to struggle uselessly against it any longer."

"I could do that--should like of all things to do it till Morris goes: but that will be so soon--."

"Morris! where is she going?"

Margaret related this piece of domestic news, too private to be told to any one else till the last moment. Maria forgot her own troubles, or despised them as she listened, so grieved was she for her friends, including Morris. Margaret was not very sorry on Morris's own account.

Morris wanted rest--an easier place. She had had too much upon her for some time past.

"What then will you have, when she is gone?"

"If I have work enough to drive all thought out of my head, I shall be thankful. Meantime, I will bestow my best wit upon your case."

"I am ashamed of my case already. While sitting in all this comfort here, I can hardly believe in my own tremors, of no earlier date than last night. Come, let us draw to the fire. I hope we shall not end with sitting up all night; but I feel as if I should like it very much."

Margaret stirred up a blaze, and put out the candles. No economy was now beneath her care. As she took her seat beside her friend, she said:

"Maria, did you ever know any place so dull and dismal as Deerbrook is now? Is it not enough to make any heart as heavy as the fortunes of the place?"

"Even the little that I see of it, in going to and from the Greys, looks sad enough. You see the outskirts, which I suppose are worse still."

"The very air feels too heavy to breathe. The cottages, and even the better houses, appear to my eyes damp and weather-stained on the outside, and silent within. The children sit shivering on the thresholds--do not they?--instead of shouting at their play as they did.

Every one looks discontented, and complains--the poor of want of bread, and every one else of hard times, and all manner of woes, that one never hears of in prosperous seasons. Mr James says the actions for trespa.s.s are beyond all example; Mr Tucker declares his dog, that died the other day, was poisoned; and I never pa.s.s the Green but the women are even quarrelling for precedence at the pump."

"I have witnessed some of this, but not all: and neither, I suspect, have you, Margaret, though you think you have. We see the affairs of the world in shadow, you know, when our own hearts are sad."

"My heart is not so sad as you think. You do not believe me: but that is because you do not believe what I am sure of--that he is not to blame for anything that has happened--that, at least, he has only been mistaken,--that there his been no fickleness, no selfishness, in him. I could not speak of this, even to you, Maria, if it were not a duty to him. You must not be left to suppose from my silence that he is to blame, as you think he is. I suffer from no sense of injury from him.

I got over that, long ago."

Maria would not say, as she thought, "You had to get over it, then?"

"It makes me very unhappy to think how he is suffering,--how much more he has to bear than I; so much more than the separation and the blank.

He cannot trust me as I trusted him; and that is, indeed, to be without consolation."

"Do men ever trust as women do?"

"Yes, Edward does. If he were to go to India for twenty years, he would know, as certainly as I should, that Hester would be widowed in every thought till his return. And the time will come when Philip will know this as certainly of me. It is but a little while yet that I have waited, Maria; but it does sometimes seem a weary waiting."

Maria took her friend's hand, in token of the sympathy she could not speak,--so much of hopelessness was there mingled with it.

"I know you and others think that this waiting is to go on for ever."

"No, love; not so."

"Or that a certainty which is even worse will come some day. But it will be otherwise. His love can no more be quenched or alienated by the slanders of a wicked woman, than the sun can be put out by an eclipse, or sent to enlighten another world, leaving us mourning."