"Eh, lass! thou little knows the pleasure o' helping others; I was
as happy there as could be; almost as happy as I was at home. Well,
but next year I thought I could go at a leisure time, and missis
telled me I should have a fortnight then, and I used to sit up all
that winter working hard at patchwork, to have a quilt of my own
making to take to my mother. But master died, and missis went away
fra Manchester, and I'd to look out for a place again."

"Well, but," interrupted Mary, "I should have thought that was the
best time to go home."

"No, I thought not. You see it was a different thing going home for
a week on a visit, may be with money in my pocket to give father a
lift, to going home to be a burden to him. Besides, how could I
hear o' a place there? Anyways I thought it best to stay, though
perhaps it might have been better to ha' gone, for then I should ha'
seen mother again"; and the poor old woman looked puzzled.

"I'm sure you did what you thought right," said Margaret gently.

"Ay, lass, that's it," said Alice, raising her head and speaking
more cheerfully. "That's the thing, and then let the Lord send what
He sees fit; not but that I grieved sore, oh, sore and sad, when
towards spring next year, when my quilt were all done to th' lining,
George came in one evening to tell me mother was dead. I cried many
a night at after;* I'd no time for crying by day, for that missis
was terrible strict; she would not hearken to my going to th'
funeral; and indeed I would have been too late, for George set off
that very night by th' coach, and the letter had been kept or summut