ds, they would put her in a
penitentiary or something. A penitentiary for her! Oh, Miss Chatty, it's
little they know. If they could put her in a palace, and give her horses
and carriages and plenty to amuse her, that might do. But she doesn't
want to repent; she doesn't know what it means. She wants to be well off
and happy. And she's so young. Oh, don't think I would be like that for
the world, not for the world, don't think it! But I can't help knowing
how she feels. Oh, my poor dear, my poor dear!"

The wonder with which Chatty heard this strange plea was beyond
description; but she would ask no more questions, and hear no more,
though Lizzie seemed ready enough to furnish her with all details. She
went back with the girl to the shop, thus disarming Mrs. Bagley, who
was always full of suspicions and alarm when Lizzie was out of the way,
and stood talking to the old woman while Lizzie stole into the parlour
behind and got rid of the traces of her tears. Chatty felt very solemn
as she stood and talked about her patterns, feeling as if she had come
from a death-bed or a funeral It was something still more terrible and
solemnising; it was her first glimpse into a darkness of which she knew
nothing, and her voice sounded in her own ears like a mockery as she
asked about the bundle of new things that had come from Highcombe.
"There's one as is called the honeysuckle," said Mrs. Bagley: "it will
just please you, Miss Chatty, as likes nice delicate little things."
The old woman thought she must be feeling her sister's loss dreadful,
looking as melancholy as if it was her coffin she was buying. And Chatty
accepted the honeysuckle pattern and looked out the materials for working
it, without relaxing from that seriousness which was so little habitual
to her. She even forgot all about her own problems, as she went home,
seeing constantly before her the pretty childlike face all blurred with
tears. Was it true, as Lizzie said, that there was no way to help or
deliver? If she had stopped, perhaps, as she had almost been impelled to
do, and said, as it was on her lips to say, "Oh, I am so sorry for you;
oh, don't do wrong any more," would the unhappy creature perhaps have
listened to her, and repented, though Lizzie said she did not want to
repent? Chatty could not forget that pitiful face. Would she ever, she
wondered, meet it again?

CHAPTER XXVI.

Markland lay as usual, bare and white against the sun, upon that day of