Maggie was in a flush of sudden color, and a happy palpitation of her fluttering little heart.  She could hardly feel any sorrow that the kind Frank was going away, so brimful was she of the thoughts of seeing his mother; who had grown strangely associated in her dreams, both sleeping and waking, with the still calm marble effigies that lay for ever clasping their hands in prayer on the altar-tombs in Combehurst church.  All the week was one happy season of anticipation.  She was afraid her mother was secretly irritated at her natural rejoicing; and so she did not speak to her about it, but she kept awake till Nancy came to bed, and poured into her sympathizing ears every detail, real or imaginary, of her past or future intercourse with Mrs. Buxton, and the old servant listened with interest, and fell into the custom of picturing the future with the ease and simplicity of a child.

“Suppose, Nancy! only suppose, you know, that she did die.  I don’t mean really die, but go into a trance like death; she looked as if she was in one when I first saw her; I would not leave her, but I would sit by her, and watch her, and watch her.”

“Her lips would be always fresh and red,” interrupted Nancy.

“Yes, I know you’ve told me before how they keep red—­I should look at them quite steadily; I would try never to go to sleep.”

“The great thing would be to have air-holes left in the coffin.”  But Nancy felt the little girl creep close to her at the grim suggestion, and, with the tact of love, she changed the subject.

“Or supposing we could hear of a doctor who could charm away illness.  There were such in my young days; but I don’t think people are so knowledgeable now.  Peggy Jackson, that lived near us when I was a girl, was cured of a waste by a charm.”

“What is a waste, Nancy?”

“It is just a pining away.  Food does not nourish nor drink strengthen them, but they just fade off, and grow thinner and thinner, till their shadow looks gray instead of black at noonday; but he cured her in no time by a charm.”

“Oh, if we could find him.”

“Lass, he’s dead, and she’s dead, too, long ago!”

While Maggie was in imagination going over moor and fell, into the hollows of the distant mysterious hills, where she imagined all strange beasts and weird people to haunt, she fell asleep.

Such were the fanciful thoughts which were engendered in the little girl’s mind by her secluded and solitary life.  It was more solitary than ever, now that Edward was gone to school.  The house missed his loud cheerful voice, and bursting presence.  There seemed much less to be done, now that his numerous wants no longer called for ministration and attendance.  Maggie did her task of work on her own gray rock; but as it was sooner finished, now that he was not there to interrupt and call her off, she used to stray up the Fell Lane at the back of the house; a little