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 heretofore 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 apron as she sobbed anew.
"Dear, dear! All flesh is grass; here to-day and gone to-morrow, 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, may be, 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 [26] to him, and what harm would there be in going now?"