the bed, yet letting her feet touch the ground
without fairly standing down, as she shaded
her wet ruffled hair off her face, and tried to
look as though nothing were the matter; as
if she had only been asleep.

"I hardly can tell what time it is," replied
Dixon, in an aggrieved tone of voice. " Since
your mamma told me this terrible news,
when I dressed her for tea, I have lost all
count of time. I am sure I don't know what
is to become of us all. When Charlotte told
me just now you were sobbing, Miss Hale, I
thought, no wonder, poor thing! And master
thinking of turning Dissenter at his time of
life, when, if it is not to be said he's done
well in the Church, he's not done badly after
all. I had a cousin, miss, who turned Methodist
preacher after he was fifty years of age,
and a tailor all his life; but then he had
never been able to make a pair of trousers
to fit, for as long as he had been in the trade,
so it was no wonder; but for master! as I said
to missus, " What would poor Sir John have
said? he never liked your marrying Mr. Hale,
but if he could have known it would have
come to this, he would have sworn worse
oaths than ever, if that was possible!"

Dixon had been so much accustomed to
comment upon Mr. Hale's proceedings to her
mistress (who listened to her, or not, as she
was in the humour), that she never noticed
Margaret's flashing eye and dilating nostril. To
hear her father talked of in this way by a
servant to her face!

"Dixon," she said, in the low tone she
always used when much excited, which had a
sound in it as of some distant turmoil, or threatening
storm breaking far away. " Dixon!
you forget to whom you are speaking." She
stood upright and firm on her feet now,
confronting the waiting-maid, and fixing her with
her steady discerning eye. " I am Mr. Hale's
daughter. Go! You have made a strange
mistake, and one that I am sure your own
good feeling will make you sorry for when
you think about it."

Dixon hung irresolutely about the room
for a minute or two. Margaret repeated,
"You may leave me, Dixon. I wish you to
go." Dixon did not know whether to resent
these decided words or to cry; either course
would have done with her mistress: but, as
she said to herself, " Miss Margaret has a
touch of the old gentleman about her, as
well as poor Master Frederick; I wonder
where they get it from? " and she who would
have resented such words from any one less
haughty and determined in manner, was
subdued enough to say, in a half humble, half
injured tone:

"Mayn't I unfasten your gown, miss, and
do your hair?"

"No! not to-night, thank you." And
Margaret gravely lighted her out of the room,
and bolted the door. From henceforth Dixon
obeyed and admired Margaret. She said it
was because she was so like poor Master
Frederick; but the truth was, that Dixon, as
do many others, liked to feel herself ruled by
a powerful and decided nature.

Margaret needed all Dixon's help in action,
and silence in words; for, for some time, the
latter thought it her duty to show her sense
of affront in saying as little as possible to
her young lady; so the energy came out in
doing rather than in speaking. A fortnight
was a very short time to make arrangements
for so serious a removal; as Dixon said, " Any
one but a gentleman—indeed almost any
other gentleman—" but catching a look at
Margaret's straight, stern brow just here, she
coughed the remainder of the sentence away,
and meekly took the horehound drop that
Margaret offered her, to stop the " little
tickling at my chest, miss." But almost any
one but Mr. Hale would have had practical
knowledge enough to know that in so short a
time it would be difficult to fix on any house
in Milton-Northern, or indeed elsewhere, to
which they could remove the furniture that
had of necessity to be taken out of Helstone
vicarage.

Mrs. Hale, overpowered by all the troubles
and necessities for immediate household
decisions that seemed to come upon her at once,
became really ill, and Margaret almost felt it as a
relief when her mother fairly took to her bed,
and left the management of affairs to her.
Dixon, true to her post of body-guard,
attended most faithfully to her mistress, and only
emerged from Mrs. Hale's bedroom to shake
her head, and murmur to herself in a manner
which Margaret did not choose to hear. For
the one thing clear and straight before her,
was the necessity for leaving Helstone. Mr.
Hale's successor in the living was appointed;
and, at any rate, after her father's decision,
there must be no lingering now, for his sake,
as well as for every other consideration. For
he came home every evening more and more
depressed after the necessary leave-taking
which he had resolved to have with every
individual parishioner. Margaret, inexperienced
as she was in all the necessary matter-of-fact
business to be got through, did not know to
whom to apply for advice. The cook and
Charlotte worked away with willing arms
and stout hearts at all the moving and packing;
and as far as that went, Margaret's
admirable sense enabled her to see what was
best, and to direct how it should be done.
But where were they to go to? In a week
they must be gone. Straight to Milton, or
where? So many arrangements depended on
this decision that Margaret resolved to ask
her father one evening, in spite of his evident
fatigue and low spirits. He answered:

"My dear! I have really had too much
to think about to settle this. What does
your mother say? What does she wish?
Poor Maria!"

He met with an echo even louder than his
sigh. Dixon had just come into the room for
another cup of tea for Mrs. Hale, and catching