‘I’ve got no money,’ said Martha.

‘Oh, you and me’ll not quarrel about money,’ replied Andrew; ’you make your choice, and I’ll wait your time.  I’m coming my rounds pretty regular, and you can put up a shilling or two agen I come, without letting on to father.  But maybe you’re married, my dear?’

‘No,’ she answered, blushing.

‘It’s not far off, I’ll be bound,’ he continued, ’and with a shawl like this, now, you’d look like a full-blown rose.  Come, I’ll not be hard upon you, as it’s the first time you’ve dealt with me.  That shawl’s worth ten shillings if it’s worth a farthing, and I’ll let you have it for seven shillings and sixpence; half a crown down, and a shilling a fortnight till it’s paid up.’

Andrew threw the shawl over her shoulders, and turned her round to the envying view of the assembled girls, who were not allowed to touch any of his goods with their soiled hands.  Martha softly stroked the bright blue border, and felt its texture between her fingers; while she deliberated within herself whether she could not buy it from the fund procured by the bilberry picking in the autumn.  As Stephen had never known the full amount, she could withdraw the half-crown without his knowledge, and the sixpence a week she could save out of her own earnings.  In ten minutes, while Andrew was bargaining with some of the others, she came to the conclusion that she could not possibly do any longer without a new shawl; so, telling the packman that she would be back again directly, she ran as swiftly as she could over the cinder-hill homewards.

In her hurry to accompany Bess to the lane, she had left her cabin door unfastened, never thinking of the danger of the open pit to her blind grandfather and the child.  Little Nan had been wearying all morning for a run in the wintry sunshine, out of the close steam of washing in the small hut; but Martha had not dared to let her run about alone, as she had been used to do at Fern’s Hollow, in their safe garden.  After Martha and Black Bess had left her, the child stood looking wistfully through the open door for some time; but at last she ventured over the door-sill, and her tiny feet painfully climbed the frozen bank behind the house, whence she could see the group of girls in the lane below.  Perhaps she would have found her way down to them, but Martha had been cross with her all the morning, and the child’s little spirit was frightened with her scolding.  She turned back to the cabin, sobbing, for the north wind blew coldly upon her; and then she must have caught sight of the shaft, where Stephen had been throwing stones down for her the night before, without a thought of the little one trying to pursue the dangerous game alone.  As Martha came over the cinder-hill, her eyes fell upon little Nan, rosy, laughing, screaming with delight as her tiny hands lifted a large stone high above her curly head, while she bent over the unguarded margin of the pit.  But before Martha could move in her agony of terror, the heavy stone dropped from her small fingers, and Nan, little Nan, with her rosy, laughing face, had fallen after it.