‘Come, Bessy,’ said Margaret, ’I won’t say you’re exaggerating, because I don’t know enough about it:  but, perhaps, as you’re not well, you’re only looking on one side, and there is another and a brighter to be looked to.’

‘It’s all well enough for yo’ to say so, who have lived in pleasant green places all your life long, and never known want or care, or wickedness either, for that matter.’

‘Take care,’ said Margaret, her cheek flushing, and her eye lightening, ’how you judge, Bessy.  I shall go home to my mother, who is so ill—­so ill, Bessy, that there’s no outlet but death for her out of the prison of her great suffering; and yet I must speak cheerfully to my father, who has no notion of her real state, and to whom the knowledge must come gradually.  The only person—­the only one who could sympathise with me and help me—­whose presence could comfort my mother more than any other earthly thing—­is falsely accused—­would run the risk of death if he came to see his dying mother.  This I tell you—­only you, Bessy.  You must not mention it.  No other person in Milton—­hardly any other person in England knows.  Have I not care?  Do I not know anxiety, though I go about well-dressed, and have food enough?  Oh, Bessy, God is just, and our lots are well portioned out by Him, although none but He knows the bitterness of our souls.’

‘I ask your pardon,’ replied Bessy, humbly.  ’Sometimes, when I’ve thought o’ my life, and the little pleasure I’ve had in it, I’ve believed that, maybe, I was one of those doomed to die by the falling of a star from heaven; “And the name of the star is called Wormwood;’ and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.”  One can bear pain and sorrow better if one thinks it has been prophesied long before for one:  somehow, then it seems as if my pain was needed for the fulfilment; otherways it seems all sent for nothing.’

‘Nay, Bessy—­think!’ said Margaret.  ’God does not willingly afflict.  Don’t dwell so much on the prophecies, but read the clearer parts of the Bible.’

’I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words of promise—­hear tell o’ anything so far different fro’ this dreary world, and this town above a’, as in Revelations?  Many’s the time I’ve repeated the verses in the seventh chapter to myself, just for the sound.  It’s as good as an organ, and as different from every day, too.  No, I cannot give up Revelations.  It gives me more comfort than any other book i’ the Bible.’

‘Let me come and read you some of my favourite chapters.’

‘Ay,’ said she, greedily, ‘come.  Father will maybe hear yo’.  He’s deaved wi’ my talking; he says it’s all nought to do with the things o’ to-day, and that’s his business.’

‘Where is your sister?’

’Gone fustian-cutting.  I were loth to let her go; but somehow we must live; and th’ Union can’t afford us much.’