So there was a warm greeting between the tidy
old woman and the blooming young work-girl; and then Alice ventured
to ask if she would come in and take her tea with her that very
evening.
"You'll think it dull enough to come just to sit with an old woman
like me, but there's a tidy young lass as lives in the floor above,
who does plain work, and now and then a bit in your own line, Mary;
she's grand-daughter to old Job Legh, a spinner, and a good girl she
is. Do come, Mary! I've a terrible wish to make you known to each
other. She's a genteel-looking lass, too."
At the beginning of this speech Mary had feared the intended visitor
was to be no other than Alice's nephew; but Alice was too
delicate-minded to plan a meeting, even for her dear Jem, when one
would have been an unwilling party; and Mary, relieved from her
apprehension by the conclusion, gladly agreed to come. How busy
Alice felt! it was not often she had any one to tea; and now her
sense of the duties of a hostess were almost too much for her. She
made haste home, and lighted the unwilling fire, borrowing a pair of
bellows to make it burn the faster.
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