Friends and Neighbours

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. DUTTON. And you will send the first thing to-morrow morning for the flannel, Mrs. Bailey. I must be going now, it is so late. Indeed, ma'am, and it is late, and I take it very kind of you to be troubling yourself to come so late to look after the child. But aren't you afeard to walk by...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. DUTTON. And you will send the first thing to-morrow morning for the flannel, Mrs. Bailey. I must be going now, it is so late. Indeed, ma'am, and it is late, and I take it very kind of you to be troubling yourself to come so late to look after the child. But aren't you afeard to walk by yourself in the dark ? Oh, no, Mrs. Bailey, no harm will come to me between here and the vicarage; I did not hear of your trouble till this afternoon, and I could not rest without coming to see if I could do anything. I have little ones of my own, you know. Good-night; don't keep the door open, the air is so cold outside. The cottage door closed, and Marion Temple started on her homeward walk. She had not far to go, but her road lay across a ploughed field, now white with frost and snow, for it was the first week of the new year, and the winter had been unusually severe. The cold wind blew in her face, and for a moment she staggered and almost lost her footing: but only for a moment, and nothing daunted she pushed resolutely forward along her slippery path. And the poor widow whose home she had just left, drew aside the curtain of her little window, and watched her dark figure crossing the snowy waste with a watery eye and trembling lip, as, pressing her sick child to her breast, she murmured: Bless her kind heart to think of her coming out this wild night to help a poor creature she'd never set eyes on. I often said we wanted a parson with a wife here, and sure if the new parson's like his lady, they'll be a blessing to the place. 'What was it she said about the blessed Lord ? it went home to me, it seemed to warm me up like, and I so cold and frozen up with frettin' and sorrow. Sure I've not forgotten, and yet I can't quite mind the words. It was somethin...