and she would sit and do nothing but play wi’ her fingers fro’ morn till night, and if they asked her what ailed her, she just said, “He once was here;” and if they bid her go about her work, it were a’ the same.  And when they scolded her, and pretty sharp too, she would stand up and put her hair from her eyes, and look about her like a crazy thing searching for her wits, and ne’er finding them, for all she could think on was just, “He once was here.”  It were a caution to me again thinking a man t’ mean what he says when he’s a-talking to a young woman.’

‘But what became on poor Nancy?’ asked Sylvia.

‘What should become on her or on any lass as gives hersel’ up to thinking on a man who cares nought for her?’ replied her mother, a little severely.  ’She were crazed, and my aunt couldn’t keep her on, could she?  She did keep her a long weary time, thinking as she would, may-be, come to hersel’, and, anyhow, she were a motherless wench.  But at length she had for t’ go where she came fro’—­back to Keswick workhouse:  and when last I heerd on her she were chained to th’ great kitchen dresser i’ t’ workhouse; they’d beaten her till she were taught to be silent and quiet i’ th’ daytime, but at night, when she were left alone, she would take up th’ oud cry, till it wrung their heart, so they’d many a time to come down and beat her again to get any peace.  It were a caution to me, as I said afore, to keep fro’ thinking on men as thought nought on me.’

‘Poor crazy Nancy!’ sighed Sylvia.  The mother wondered if she had taken the ‘caution’ to herself, or was only full of pity for the mad girl, dead long before.

CHAPTER XVI

THE ENGAGEMENT

‘As the day lengthens so the cold strengthens.’  It was so that year; the hard frost which began on new year’s eve lasted on and on into late February, black and bitter, but welcome enough to the farmers, as it kept back the too early growth of autumn-sown wheat, and gave them the opportunity of leading manure.  But it did not suit invalids as well, and Bell Robson, though not getting worse, did not make any progress towards amendment.  Sylvia was kept very busy, notwithstanding that she had the assistance of a poor widow-woman in the neighbourhood on cleaning, or washing, or churning days.  Her life was quiet and monotonous, although hard-working; and while her hands mechanically found and did their accustomed labour, the thoughts that rose in her head always centred on Charley Kinraid, his ways, his words, his looks, whether they all meant what she would fain believe they did, and whether, meaning love at the time, such a feeling was likely to endure.  Her mother’s story of crazy Nancy had taken hold of her; but not as a ‘caution,’ rather as a parallel case to her own.  Like Nancy, and borrowing the poor girl’s own words, she would say softly to herself, ‘He once was here’; but all along she believed in her heart he would come back again to her, though it touched her strangely to imagine the agonies of forsaken love.