trainedly that good-natured Yorkshire Martha was a
little frightened and quite sorry for her. She went to the bed and bent
over her.

"Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she begged. "You mustn't for
sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed. I don't know anythin' about
anythin'--just like you said. I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'."

There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer
Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had a good effect on Mary. She
gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved.

"It's time for thee to get up now," she said. "Mrs. Medlock said I was
to carry tha' breakfast an' tea an' dinner into th' room next to this.
It's been made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy
clothes if tha'll get out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th' back tha'
cannot button them up tha'self."

When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the
wardrobe were not the ones she had worn when she arrived the night
before with Mrs. Medlock.

"Those are not mine," she said. "Mine are black."

She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with cool
approval:

"Those are nicer than mine."

"These are th' ones tha' must put on," Martha answered. "Mr. Craven
ordered Mrs. Medlock to get 'em in London. He said 'I won't have a child
dressed in black wanderin' about like a lost soul,' he said. 'It'd make
the place sadder than it is. Put color on her.' Mother she said she knew
what he meant. Mother always knows what a body means. She doesn't hold
with black hersel'."

"I hate black things," said Mary.

The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Martha
had "buttoned up" her little sisters and brothers but she had never seen
a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for
her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own.

"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said when Mary quietly
held out her foot.

"My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring. "It was the custom."

She said that very often--"It was the custom." The native servants were
always saying it. If one told them to do a thing their ancestors had not
done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, "It is not
the custom" and one knew that was the end of the matter.

It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but
stand and allow herself to be dressed like a doll, but before she was
ready for break