She stopped in her work, and hung the towel over her arm.
"John," she said, looking straight at him, with a strange light in her brown eyes, and her face rather pale, "I want to go home."
An expression half of pain, half of astonishment, came into John's honest face. He too was a shade paler, and the candle trembled a little in his hand as he asked,--
"Is the house too lonely again, Margery? You did say you wanted to go home for a spell, after, after--but I thought you had got contented again."
She had turned away from him as she answered,--
"Yes, John, the house is lonely again. I see the little hands on all the chairs, and hear the little feet crawling over the floor;" but there was something of coldness in her tone, very unlike the pleading voice in which she had once before made the same request.
"Well, Margery," he went on, after a pause, going to the table and putting the candle upon it, "if you think it will ease your heart to go and see the old folks a little while, I am willing you should."
He never spoke of the utter loneliness that fell upon him at the thought of her going away, and how to him, too, the dim room was full of the golden hair and the blue eyes of his child.
"When will you come back, Margery?" he asked, after another pause.
"On Monday morning, if you can spare the horse to take me over."
"I think I can, Margery; but I shall be sorry to lose my little wify so soon," he could not help saying, as he laid his rough hand on her hair, with so soft a touch that the tears started to her eyes.
"I shall ask Mary to come here and keep house for you, while I am away," she said. "Mary is used to our ways, and can do for you very well."
"Mary?" asked John, "I reckon she will be busy enough at harvest-time. I need nobody when you are gone. I can live single again," with a half smile; "but just as you think, Margery."
Nothing more was said on the subject. Margery took up her sewing, and John his paper. But he did not read very attentively that evening, but often stopped and looked long and intently at Margery, who kept her eyes steadily on the busy needle that was flying to and fro in her fingers. It was a Saturday, and John tired with a week's hard labor. So the fire was raked for the night, the old clock wound up, and the little kitchen soon dark and silent.