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