ggie's fancy.

"I say, did you do all that yourself, Maggie?"

"Yes, that's what I _can_ do. I make the patterns out of me head, and
they're mostly flowers, because I love 'em. It's pretty, isn't it?" said
Maggie, stroking tenderly a pattern of pansies, blue pansies, such as she
had never sold in Evans's shop.

"Very pretty--very beautiful."

"I've sold lots--to a lady, before I was ill. See here."

Maggie unfolded something that was pinned in silver paper with a peculiar
care. It was a small garment, in some faint-coloured silk, embroidered
with blue pansies (always blue pansies).

"That's a frock," said she, "for a little girl. You've got a little
girl--a little fair girl."

He reddened. How the devil, he wondered, does she know that I have a
little fair girl? "I don't think it would fit her," he said.

Maggie reddened now.

"Oh--I don't want you to buy it. I don't want you to buy anything. Only
to tell people."

So much he promised her. He tried to think of all the people he could
tell. Mrs. Hannay, Mrs. Ransome, Mrs. Gardner--no, Mrs. Gardner was
Anne's friend. If Anne had been different he could have told Anne. He
could have told her everything. As it was--No.

He rose to go, but, instead of going, he stayed and bought several pieces
of embroidery for Mrs. Hannay, and the frock, not for Peggy, but for Mrs.
Ransome's little girl. They haggled a good deal over the price, owing
to Maggie's obstinate attempts to ruin her own market. (She must always
have been bent on ruining herself, poor child.) Then he tried to go
again, and Mrs. Morse came in with the tea-tray, and Maggie insisted on
making him a cup of tea, and of course he had to stay and drink it.

Maggie revived over her tea-tray. Her face flushed and rounded again to
an orb of jubilant content. And he asked her if she were happy. If she
liked her work.

She hesitated. "It's this way," she said. "Sometimes I can't think of
anything else. I can sit and sit at it for weeks on end. I don't want
anything else. Then, all of a sudden, something comes over me, and I
can't put in another stitch. Sometimes--when it comes--I'm that tired,
it's as if I 'ad weights on me arms, and I couldn't 'old them up to sew.
And sometimes, again, I'm that restless, it's as if you'd lit a fire
under me feet. I'm frightened," said Maggie, "when I feel it coming. But
I'm only tired now."

She broke off; but by the expression of her face, he saw that her
thoughts ran under