‘It’s nout,’ said Bessy.  ‘It’s not death yet.  I had a fearfu’ night wi’ dreams—­or somewhat like dreams, for I were wide awake—­and I’m all in a swounding daze to-day,—­only yon poor chap made me alive again.  No! it’s not death yet, but death is not far off.  Ay!  Cover me up, and I’ll may be sleep, if th’ cough will let me.  Good night—­good afternoon, m’appen I should say—­but th’ light is dim an’ misty to-day.’

CHAPTER XX

MEN AND GENTLEMEN

’Old and young, boy, let ’em all eat, I have it;
Let ’em have ten tire of teeth a-piece, I care not.’ 
Rollo, Duke of Normandy.

Margaret went home so painfully occupied with what she had heard and seen that she hardly knew how to rouse herself up to the duties which awaited her; the necessity for keeping up a constant flow of cheerful conversation for her mother, who, now that she was unable to go out, always looked to Margaret’s return from the shortest walk as bringing in some news.

’And can your factory friend come on Thursday to see you dressed?’

‘She was so ill I never thought of asking her,’ said Margaret, dolefully.

‘Dear!  Everybody is ill now, I think,’ said Mrs. Hale, with a little of the jealousy which one invalid is apt to feel of another.  ’But it must be very sad to be ill in one of those little back streets.’ (Her kindly nature prevailing, and the old Helstone habits of thought returning.) ’It’s bad enough here.  What could you do for her, Margaret?  Mr. Thornton has sent me some of his old port wine since you went out.  Would a bottle of that do her good, think you?’

’No, mamma!  I don’t believe they are very poor,—­at least, they don’t speak as if they were; and, at any rate, Bessy’s illness is consumption—­she won’t want wine.  Perhaps, I might take her a little preserve, made of our dear Helstone fruit.  No! there’s another family to whom I should like to give—­Oh mamma, mamma! how am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen to-day?’ exclaimed Margaret, bursting the bounds she had preordained for herself before she came in, and telling her mother of what she had seen and heard at Higgins’s cottage.

It distressed Mrs. Hale excessively.  It made her restlessly irritated till she could do something.  She directed Margaret to pack up a basket in the very drawing-room, to be sent there and then to the family; and was almost angry with her for saying, that it would not signify if it did not go till morning, as she knew Higgins had provided for their immediate wants, and she herself had left money with Bessy.  Mrs. Hale called her unfeeling for saying this; and never gave herself breathing-time till the basket was sent out of the house.  Then she said: 

’After all, we may have been doing wrong.  It was only the last time Mr. Thornton was here that he said, those were no true friends who helped to prolong the struggle by assisting the turn outs.  And this Boucher-man was a turn-out, was he not?’