--the belle of the
village, the acknowledged beauty of Bullhampton. And there she lay,
a thing said to be so foul that even a father could not endure to
have her name mentioned in his ears! And yet, how small had been
her fault compared with other crimes for which men and women are
forgiven speedily, even if it has been held that pardon has ever been
required.

She came over, and knelt down and kissed her sister on her brow; and
as she did so she swore to herself that by her, even in the inmost
recesses of her bosom, Carry should never be held to be evil, to be a
castaway, to be one of whom, as her sister, it would behove her to be
ashamed. She had told Carry that she would "never cast it up against
her." She now resolved that there should be no such casting up even
in her own judgment. Had she, too, been fair, might not she also have
fallen?

At five o'clock on the following morning the miller went out from the
house to his mill, according to his daily practice. Fanny heard his
heavy step, heard the bar withdrawn, heard the shutters removed from
the kitchen window, and knew that her father was as yet in ignorance
of the inmate who had been harboured. Fanny at once arose from her
bed, careful not to disturb her companion. She had thought it all
out, whether she would have Carry ready dressed for an escape, should
it be that her father would demand imperiously that she should be
sent adrift from the mill, or whether it might not be better that she
should be able to plead at the first moment that her sister was in
bed, tired, asleep,--at any rate undressed,--and that some little
time must be allowed. Might it not be that even in that hour her
father's heart might be softened? But she must lose no time in going
to him. The hired man who now tended the mill with her father came
always at six, and that which she had to say to him must be said with
no ear to hear her but his own. It would have been impossible even
for her to remind him of his daughter before a stranger. She slipped
her clothes on, therefore, and within ten minutes of her father's
departure followed him into the mill.

The old man had gone aloft, and she heard his slow, heavy feet as he
was moving the sacks which were above her head. She considered for a
moment, and thinking it better that she should not herself ascend the
little ladder,--knowing that it might be well that she should have
the power of instant retreat to the house,--she called to him from