Twenty years ago got nigher and nigher to
yesterday, with every fresh thing belonging to her that I laid a hand
on. There was a arbor in father's garden she used to be fond of working
in of evenings. I'd lost all thought of that place for more years than
I can reckon up. I called it to mind again--and called _her_ to mind
again, too, sitting and working and singing in the arbor--only with
laying holt of a bit of patchwork stuff in the bottom of her box, with
her needle and thread left sticking in it."
"Ah, dear, dear!" sighed Mrs. Peckover, "I wish I'd seen her then! She
was as happy, I dare say, as the bird on the tree. But there's one
thing I can't exactly make out yet," she added--"how did you first come
to know all about Mary's child?"
"All? There wasn't no _all_ in it, till I see the child herself. Except
knowing that the poor creeter's baby had been born alive, I knowed
nothing when I first come away from the old place in the country.
Child! I hadn't nothing of the sort in my mind, when I got back to
London. It was how to track the man as was Mary's death, that I puzzled
and worrited about in my head, at that time--"
"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Peckover, interposing to keep him away from the
dangerous subject, as she heard his voice change, and saw his eyes
begin to brighten again.
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