Margaret was half-amused, half-nettled at this answer.  She was not sure if she would go where permission was given so like a favour conferred.  But when they came to the town into Frances Street, the girl stopped a minute, and said,

‘Yo’ll not forget yo’re to come and see us.’

‘Aye, aye,’ said the father, impatiently, ’hoo’ll come.  Hoo’s a bit set up now, because hoo thinks I might ha’ spoken more civilly; but hoo’ll think better on it, and come.  I can read her proud bonny face like a book.  Come along, Bess; there’s the mill bell ringing.’

Margaret went home, wondering at her new friends, and smiling at the man’s insight into what had been passing in her mind.  From that day Milton became a brighter place to her.  It was not the long, bleak sunny days of spring, nor yet was it that time was reconciling her to the town of her habitation.  It was that in it she had found a human interest.

CHAPTER IX

DRESSING FOR TEA

’Let China’s earth, enrich’d with colour’d stains,
Pencil’d with gold, and streak’d with azure veins,
The grateful flavour of the Indian leaf,
Or Mocho’s sunburnt berry glad receive.’ 
Mrs. BARBAULD.

The day after this meeting with Higgins and his daughter, Mr. Hale came upstairs into the little drawing-room at an unusual hour.  He went up to different objects in the room, as if examining them, but Margaret saw that it was merely a nervous trick—­a way of putting off something he wished, yet feared to say.  Out it came at last—­

‘My dear!  I’ve asked Mr. Thornton to come to tea to-night.’

Mrs. Hale was leaning back in her easy chair, with her eyes shut, and an expression of pain on her face which had become habitual to her of late.  But she roused up into querulousness at this speech of her husband’s.

’Mr. Thornton!—­and to-night!  What in the world does the man want to come here for?  And Dixon is washing my muslins and laces, and there is no soft water with these horrid east winds, which I suppose we shall have all the year round in Milton.’

‘The wind is veering round, my dear,’ said Mr. Hale, looking out at the smoke, which drifted right from the east, only he did not yet understand the points of the compass, and rather arranged them ad libitum, according to circumstances.

‘Don’t tell me!’ said Mrs. Hale, shuddering up, and wrapping her shawl about her still more closely.  ’But, east or west wind, I suppose this man comes.’

’Oh, mamma, that shows you never saw Mr. Thornton.  He looks like a person who would enjoy battling with every adverse thing he could meet with—­enemies, winds, or circumstances.  The more it rains and blows, the more certain we are to have him.  But I’ll go and help Dixon.  I’m getting to be a famous clear-starcher.  And he won’t want any amusement beyond talking to papa.  Papa, I am really longing to see the Pythias to your Damon.  You know I never saw him but once, and then we were so puzzled to know what to say to each other that we did not get on particularly well.’