CHAPTER XII

‘AGNES’

It blew very hard in the night. It was a black, wet gale, as they call it, but favourable, and throughout the thick and howling midnight hours the ship continued to thunder along her course, with the sailors chorusing at the ropes and running up the reeling heights to shorten the canvas. Yet I knew nothing of all this until I was told next morning how the weather had been. The sun was then shining, and a large, swollen, freckled sea brimming to the ship’s side.

I had slumbered deeply during the night, and awoke with a sense of refreshment and of strength which lightened my spirits even to cheerfulness. My spirits were easier because I felt better, and I could not feel better without hoping that, as I gained strength, my memory would return to me. I was greatly refreshed by putting on the under-linen that had been lent to me. I also wore Miss Lee’s dress, for it was my intention to mingle with the passengers this day. The material was a fine dark-green cloth. The shifted buttons made the bosom a little awry, but this was a trifling and scarce noticeable defect, and wholly atoned for by the excellent fit of the dress. Oh, it must be as they tell me, I thought to myself as I looked into the square of mirror. My figure is that of a young woman. I cannot be so old as my face seems to represent me. Who am I? Who am I?

But I was rescued from one of my depressing, heart-subduing reveries by the timely entrance of the stewardess with my breakfast. She brought a message from Miss Lee. Would I visit her at eleven? I answered ‘Yes, I would visit her with the greatest pleasure.’

‘And will you lunch in the saloon?’ said Mrs. Richards.

‘Yes,’ I answered.

‘That is right,’ said she, ‘and this breakfast shall be your last meal in this gloomy little cabin.’

I did not care to immediately leave my berth after breakfast, so I opened one of Mrs. Richards’ books and found I could read. The book was ‘Jane Eyre,’ a novel that I had formerly delighted in, but now it was all new to me and I read it as for the first time. I opened it by chance and my eye rested upon a passage, and beginning to read I read on. The part I had lighted on described Jane Eyre wandering lonely, starving, soaked through, in the dark of a bitter moorland night after she flees from the house of Mr. Rochester. I continued to read till the tears blurred the page to my sight, and whilst I thus sat Mr. McEwan entered.

‘Well, any memory this morning?’

I shook my head and put away the book. He instantly saw that I had been weeping, but took no notice.

‘I believe it’s that bandage,’ said he, ‘which keeps you mumping and dumping down in this darksome steerage. You think it is not becoming. Well, now let us see if you can manage without it.’

He removed it, and backed away as though looking at a picture. ‘Your nose is broken,’ said he.

‘I feared so,’ I exclaimed.

‘But it is broken,’ said he, ‘in such a way as to improve your looks. Did you ever see a portrait of the famous Lady Castlemaine?’ I said no. ‘Congratulate yourself,’ said he. ‘Your nose is now exactly the shape of the nose in the portrait of the celebrated Lady Castlemaine. The scar looks a little angry, but you can do without the bandage. Pray, my dear lady, don’t stare at the looking glass. When are you coming into the saloon? Very well; we shall meet at the luncheon table,’ said he, when I had answered him, and with an abrupt nod he left me.

By daylight the scar did not look so formidable as it had by lamplight. The eyebrow was a long smear of sulky red without hair, with a violet streak running through it. The flesh of the eyebrow appeared to have been torn off, and a new skin formed. I screwed my head on one side to catch a view of my profile, but my former face was not in my memory. My present face was the only face that I could recollect, and I was therefore unable to perceive that the injury which had changed the shape of my nose had in any way modified the expression of my countenance.

But I did not choose to exhibit my face with that sulky crimson scar streaming like a red trail across my right brow, and not knowing what to do I stepped to Mrs. Richards’ cabin, knocked, and found her busy with some accounts. She started on seeing me, but quickly recollected herself and exclaimed with a smile: ‘Now, indeed, you look as you should.’

‘I am ashamed,’ said I, ‘to go amongst the passengers with this unsightly forehead.’

‘It is not unsightly, my dear.’

‘How can I conceal it?’

She reflected, and then jumped up. ‘I believe I have the very thing you want,’ said she, and after hunting in a box she produced a short white veil. It was of gossamer, and it had a gloss of satin; she pinned it round my cap, contriving that it should fall a little lower than the eyes.

‘Will that do?’ she exclaimed.

‘It is the very thing,’ I cried with a child-like feeling of exultation; and then, as it was nearly eleven o’clock, I walked to the after steps and entered the saloon.

The concealment of my face gave me confidence. People might stare at me now, and welcome. There were a number of passengers lounging on sofas and chairs in various parts of the saloon, held under shelter, no doubt, by the weather, for though the sun was shining there was a brisk breeze blowing which came cold with the white spray that it flashed off the broken heads of the swelling running waters. The first person to see me as I was passing to Miss Lee’s berth was Mrs. Webber. She sprang with youthful activity from her chair and came to me, floating and rolling over the slanting deck with her hands outstretched.

‘I have quite made up my mind about you, Miss C----,’ she exclaimed. ‘I have invented a history for you, and I shall never rest until you have recovered your memory, and are able to tell me how far I am right or wrong.’

‘Let me at once thank you for your great kindness, Mrs. Webber,’ said I, returning the bows of the ladies and gentlemen who were now looking towards me.

‘Not a word of thanks, if you please. When are we to have a good long talk together?--Oh, sooner than _some_ of these days! Did you receive the volume of poems I gave to Mrs. Richards?’

I replied that I had received the book, and that I had read the poems she had marked, and that I did not doubt I should find them very beautiful when my mind had become stronger. We stood a few minutes conversing, and I then went to Miss Lee’s cabin.

The mother and daughter were together; the mother knitting, and the daughter reading or seeming to read. The girl looked very pale. There was a haggard air about the eyes as though she had not slept, but her smile of greeting was one of inexpressible sweetness, and when I took her hand she drew me to her and pressed her lips to my cheek. The mother also received me with as much warmth and kindness as though we had been old friends.

I seated myself by the side of Miss Lee, and after the three of us had conversed for awhile, Mrs. Lee said:

‘Alice has made out a long list of names. You will be surprised by her industry and imagination, for she has had no book of names to help her,’ and opening a desk that lay upon the deck she extracted a number of sheets of note paper filled with names--female Christian names and surnames written in a delicate hand in pencil.

I held the sheets of paper in my hand;--there was a faint odour of rose upon them; I knew not what that odour was--I could not have given it a name; yet it caused me to glance at Alice Lee with some dim fancy in my mind of an autumn garden and of an atmosphere perfumed by the breath of dying flowers. Was this dim fancy a memory? It came and went with subtle swiftness, but it left me motionless with my eyes fixed upon the sheets of paper in my hand.

‘We will go through those names together,’ said Alice Lee, ‘and until your memory enables you to fix upon your real name I have chosen one for you. If you do not like it tell me, and we will choose another. Miss C---- is hard and unmeaning--I cannot call you Miss C----.’

‘What name have you chosen?’ I asked.

‘For your Christian name,’ she answered, ‘I have chosen Agnes. It is a pretty name.’

‘It is Alice’s favourite name,’ said Mrs. Lee.

I repeated the word Agnes, but no name, not the strangest that was to have been suggested, could have been more barren to my imagination.

‘If Sir Frederick Thompson is to be believed,’ said Mrs. Lee, ‘you undoubtedly belong to the Calthorpe family, whoever they may be, for I am sorry to say I never before heard of them.’

‘Does he continue to say that I am a Calthorpe?’ said I.

‘Yes,’ she answered; ‘he offers to wager any sum of money that you will prove to be a Calthorpe.’

‘I am sure he is mistaken,’ said Miss Lee. ‘How would it be possible for him to recognise a likeness in you when your face was almost concealed by a bandage? And besides, is it not certain that the terrible sufferings you have undergone have greatly changed the character of your face? You may resemble the Calthorpe family now, but you could not have resembled them before your sufferings altered you, and therefore Sir Frederick Thompson must be mistaken.’

‘That is cleverly reasoned, my love,’ said her mother, looking at her fondly and wistfully; ‘nobody appears to have taken that view. Everybody except Mrs. Webber seems inclined to think Sir Frederick right. She, good soul, will not allow him to be right because she has a theory of her own.’

‘Perhaps now,’ said Miss Lee, ‘that your face is more concealed by your veil than it was by your bandage Sir Frederick will discover a likeness in you to somebody else.’

‘There is no good in speculating,’ exclaimed Mrs. Lee; ‘did not you say, Miss C----, that you would not know your own name if you were to see it written down?’

‘I fear I should not know it,’ I answered.

‘We must call her Agnes, mother,’ said Miss Lee; ‘and, Agnes, you will call me Alice.’

‘It is an easy name, and sweet to pronounce,’ said I, smiling.

‘But if our friend’s name should not be Agnes, my love,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘Miss C----is more sensible, and C is certainly the initial of her surname. But since it is your wish, my darling, and if you do not object,’ she added, addressing me with a manner that made me understand that she lived but for her daughter, and that her life was an impassioned indulgence of the beautiful fading flower, ‘I will call you Agnes.’

Her daughter’s face lighted up, but a violent fit of coughing obliged her to conceal it in her handkerchief the next instant. Her mother watched her with an expression of bitter pain, but she had smoothed it before Alice could lift her eyes and see her. There was a brief silence; the fit of coughing had taken away the girl’s breath, and she held her hand to her side, breathing short, with a glassier brightness in her eyes, and a tinge of hectic on her cheeks.

‘I am sure it comforts you to conceal your face,’ said Mrs. Lee, breaking the silence with an effort. ‘The concealment is certainly effectual. I can scarcely distinguish your eyes through the gossamer.’

‘The scar is an unsightly one,’ I exclaimed, and I raised the veil that they might see my forehead.

‘It is not so bad as I had feared,’ said Miss Lee, leaning forward and gazing with a face exquisitely touching and beautiful, with the pure, unaffected heart-sympathy in it. Mrs. Lee gazed in silence, with a look of consternation which she could not immediately hide.

‘It was a terrible wound,’ she murmured; ‘who can doubt that the blow which produced that dreadful wound bereft you of your memory?’

‘Mother, you frighten poor Agnes. The scar is not so very dreadful, dear; indeed it is not. When the eyebrow grows the marks will not be seen.’

‘My nose is broken,’ I said, putting my finger above the bridge of it.

‘I should not know that,’ said Mrs. Lee, taking her cue of cheerful sympathy from her daughter. ‘I assure you, whether it be broken or not, there is no disfigurement.’

I let fall the veil. Alice Lee kept her eyes fastened upon me. What was passing in her mind who can tell, but her face was that of an angel, so spiritually beautiful with emotion that to my sight and fancy it seemed actually glorified, as though her living lineaments were a mere jugglery of the vision clothing an angelic spirit in flesh for a passing moment that the physical sight might behold it.

This cabin occupied by the Lees was so comfortable, fresh, and bright, that I never could have supposed the like of such a bedroom was to be found at sea. The sleeping shelves were curtained with dimity, which travelled upon brass rods. The beds were draped as on shore. There were chests of drawers, some shelves filled with books, a few framed photographs suspended against the cabin wall by loops of blue ribbon. As the vessel rolled the white water that was racing past rose, gleaming and boiling, and the flash of it flung a lightning-like dazzle into the sunshine that was pouring upon the large cabin porthole and filling the berth with the splendour of the wide, windy, foaming, ocean morning.

When I had let fall my veil I sat silent, with the eyes of Alice Lee tenderly dwelling upon me. Mrs. Lee pulled out her watch and said, ‘It is half-past twelve. Luncheon is served at one. You will take your place at the table, I hope, Agnes?’ she added, pronouncing the word with an air of embarrassment and a smile at her daughter.

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I intend to take my meals henceforth in the saloon.’

Mrs. Lee looked at Alice, who immediately said, ‘I will lunch at table to-day.’

‘But do you feel strong enough to do so?’ exclaimed Mrs. Lee anxiously.

‘I can withdraw when I feel tired,’ said the girl; ‘it is not far to walk, mother; but Agnes, sister Agnes, must sit next to me.’

‘I will speak to the steward,’ said Mrs. Lee, and, throwing a shawl over her shoulders, she smiled at me and quitted the berth.

‘We will go over the names I have written down this afternoon,’ said Alice. ‘It may be that you will not know your own name if you see it! But, supposing you should see it and remember it! There are many things I shall think of to try. And, Agnes, we must not forget to ask God to help us and to bless our efforts.’

‘God?’ I repeated, and I looked at her.

A startled expression came and went in her eyes. ‘Lift up your veil, dear,’ said she; ‘I wish to see your face.’

I raised the veil, and directed my gaze fully at her.

‘Can it be,’ said she in a low, sweet voice, ‘that you have forgotten the sacred name of God?’

‘No,’ I answered; ‘I have not forgotten the name of God. Tell me----’ I paused.

‘It is so! How strange!’ she exclaimed. ‘Yet God must live in the memory too. It is hard to realise. Oh, Agnes, this brings your loss home to me as nothing else could. Lonely indeed you must be if you do not feel that you are being watched over, and that your Heavenly Father is with you always.’

Her eyes sank, and she fell into a reverie; her lips moved, and she faintly smiled. I continued to watch her, but within me there had suddenly begun a dreadful conflict. I pronounced the word ‘God,’ but I could not understand it, and the struggle of my spirit rapidly became a horror, which, even as my companion sat with her eyes sunk, faintly smiling and her lips moving, caused me to shriek aloud and bury my face in my hands.

In a moment I felt her arm round my neck; I felt the pressure of her cheek to mine; and I heard her voice murmuring in my ear.

‘It is my loneliness,’ I cried; ‘it is my heart-breaking loneliness! I walk with blinded eyes in utter darkness. Oh, if I could but know all, if I could but know all _now_, I would be content to die in the next instant.’

She continued to fondle me with her arm round my neck, and to soothe me with words which I understood only in part. Presently she removed her arm, on which I arose and went to the porthole, and looked at the white sea swelling into the sky as the ship rolled; then, turning, I saw that Alice had resumed her seat and was wistfully watching me with a face of grief. I went to her side, and, kneeling down, hid my face on her lap.

‘You will teach me to feel that I am not alone,’ I exclaimed. ‘Speak to me about God. Make me know Him and understand Him, that, if my memory should never return to me, if my life should be the horrible blank it now is, I may not be alone.’

I felt her fingers toying with my hair.

‘I have seen the steward,’ exclaimed Mrs. Lee, opening the door; and then, pausing, she cried out, ‘What is the matter?’

‘Do not ask, mother.’

‘But, my darling, I fear that anything that affects you may prove harmful.’

I returned to my chair and dropped my veil. I felt the truth of the mother’s words, and could not bear to meet her gaze.

‘Will the steward find a place at my side for Agnes?’ asked Alice.

Mrs. Lee replied yes, looking from her daughter to me as though she sought, but was unwilling to ask for, an explanation for my kneeling at the girl’s side and hiding my face in her lap.

‘That is the Church of St. Nicholas, at Newcastle-on-Tyne,’ said Alice, pointing to a photograph upon the cabin wall; ‘and that,’ said she, pointing to another photograph, ‘is our home at Jesmond.’

I arose to look at them, and whilst I looked, Alice talked of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and of the scenery of Jesmond Dene, and of Gosforth and the Town Moor. Her pleasant gentle speech brought her mother into the subject, and some while before the luncheon bell was rung in the saloon I had recovered my composure.

When the bell rang, we stepped forth. Alice took my arm. Her mother made a movement as though to support her; they exchanged a look, and Mrs. Lee passed out alone. Sweet as a blessing from loved lips, grateful as slumber after hours of pain, was this girl’s sympathy to me. The pressure of her arm on mine extinguished the sense of loneliness in my heart. Her companionship supported me. It enabled me to face the ordeal of that crowded table without shrinking, and I loved her for guessing that _this_ would be the effect of her taking my arm and walking with me to our seats.

The chair which the head steward pointed to placed me between the mother and daughter. As I seated myself, Mrs. Lee whispered in my ear:

‘Alice has fallen in love with you. I am truly thankful. You will be just such a companion as I would choose for her. But she is very emotional, and her health--but you can see what her health is. We must endeavour to protect her against any excitement that is likely to react upon her.’

I was unable to reply to this speech, owing to Alice on the other side asking me some question that demanded an instant answer, and when I had responded, my attention was occupied in bowing and in murmuring responses to the greetings of the people at the table.

It was a bright and cheerful scene. The long centre table was handsomely furnished with good things, and the whole surface of it was as radiant as a prism with the glitter of crystal and decanters and plate. The ship rolled steadily, and the movement was without inconvenience. Her canvas supported her. Had she been a steamer she would have rolled most of the articles off the table, so high was the sea. Through the skylight glass you saw the swollen white sails rising into a dingy blue sky, across which large rolls of cloud were journeying. The captain occupied the head of the table, and when our eyes met he gave me a low bow, but called no salutation. At the foot of the table sat the first officer, Mr. Harris. He too gave me a bow--but it was an odd one. The passengers looked at me, some of them, almost continuously, yet with a certain furtiveness. But my veil and the having Alice by my side gave me all needful courage to bear a scrutiny that otherwise I should have found too distressing for endurance.

Yet I could not wonder that I was stared at. The mere circumstance of my appearing in a veil heightened me as a mystery in the eyes of the people. Who was I? Nobody knew. I was a woman that had been strangely met with at sea, and found to be without memory, unable to give myself, or my home, or my country a name. And then piquancy was added to the mystery by Sir Frederick Thompson’s discovery that I was a Calthorpe. He might be mistaken, but he might be right also; and to suppose me a Calthorpe, or, in other words, a person of far loftier social claims than anyone could pretend to on board that ship, was to create for me an interest which certainly nobody could have found had it been suspected that I was merely a poor passenger on board the French brig, or the wife of the captain, or the sister of his nephew the waiter.

Sir Frederick Thompson sat opposite me. He was for ever directing his eyes at my face, and often he would purse up his mouth into an expression which was the same as saying that the longer he looked the more he was convinced. But my veil kept him off, as I believe it kept others off. People stared, but they seemed to hesitate to accost me through that gossamer screen, which scarcely gave them a sight of my eyes.

As Mrs. Webber sat on my side of the table some distance down, she was unable to speak to me, for which I was thankful. From time to time she stretched her neck to catch a view of me, but I was careful not to see her for fear of her obliging me to raise my veil in answer. Some handsome girls were sitting at the bottom of the table near the chief officer; they were showily dressed, and their gowns fitted them exquisitely. One of them I supposed had been Mr. McEwan’s beautiful singer of the preceding evening. They could not see too much of me, I thought. Indeed their eyes were so often upon me that after a little I found myself looking at them eagerly, with a tremulous hope that at some time in our lives we had met, and that they would be able to suggest something to my memory, I whispered this hope to Alice; she glanced at them and said:

‘I fear it is no more than girlish curiosity, together with the idea that you may be a titled lady. Did you hear them ask Mr. McEwan about you just now after he had given you one of his strange, abrupt nods? I am afraid they will not be able to help us.’

‘Do you observe,’ said Mrs. Lee, on the other side, ‘how the chief officer, Mr. Harris, watches you?’

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Probably he is thinking of our conversation the other night. He may have another idea about my memory to offer.’

‘He should attend to the navigation of the ship,’ said Mrs. Lee; ‘but, like most sailors, he will be glad to trouble himself about anything else.’

My sweet companion made no lunch. She feigned to eat to please her mother, who frequently projected her head past me to see her. I noticed that every eye which rested upon the beautiful fading girl wore an expression of pity.

The conversation became general, and the long and gleaming interior was filled with the hum of it, with the sounds of corks drawn, with the noise of knives and forks busily plied upon crockery ware. There was also a dull echo of wind, a dim hissing of broken and flying waters, that gave a singular effect to this hospitable picture of gentlemen and well-dressed ladies eating and drinking.

I listened to the conversation, but what I heard of it conveyed no meaning to my mind. For example, Sir Frederick Thompson spoke of having visited a certain London theatre a couple of nights before the vessel sailed.

‘I never saw such a full ’ouse,’ he said. ‘Yet it was Shakespeare--it was “’Amlet.” They clapped when Ophelia came on mad, but it was the scenery that gave the satisfaction. Without the scenery there would have been no ’ouse; and though I consider Shakespeare top-weight as a writer, what I say is, since it’s scenery that takes, why don’t managers draw it mild and give us plays easy to follow and written in the language that men and women speak?’

He seemed partly to address this speech to me, and I listened, but hardly understood him. Others talked of Australia and the growth of the colonies, of England, of emigration, of many such matters; but, so far as my understanding of their speech went, they might have discoursed in a foreign tongue. The captain, at the head of the table, spoke seldom, and then with a grave face and a sober voice. Occasionally he glanced at me. I do not doubt that many watched me, to remark how I behaved. Knowing that I had no memory, they might well wonder whether I should not often be at a loss, and stare to see if I knew what to do with my glass, my plate, and my napkin.

Before lunch was half over Mr. Wedmold and Mr. Clack, who immediately confronted Mrs. Webber, raised their voices in a discussion. Mrs. Lee, leaning behind me to her daughter, exclaimed:

‘Those unhappy men are going to begin!’

‘What do they intend to argue about?’ said Alice, in her soft voice, looking towards them.

There was no need to inquire of our neighbours, for the two gentlemen’s voices rose high above all others.

‘It is idle to speak of Carlyle as a good writer,’ exclaimed Mr. Wedmold; ‘his style is as barbarous as his matter is trite. Never was reputation so cheaply earned as Carlyle’s. His philosophy is worth about twopence-ha’penny. Here is a great original writer, who goes to the Son of Sirach, and to Solomon, and to Collections of the Proverbs of Nations, and taking here a thought and there a thought, he dresses it up in a horrid jargon, harder than Welsh, more repulsive than Scotch, more jaw-breaking than German, puts his name to it, and offers the fine old fancy in its vile new dress as something original!’

‘It is not Dickens and Thackeray to-day,’ said Mrs. Lee.

‘Well, you may sneer as much as you like at Carlyle,’ cried Mr. Clack, ‘but to my mind his style is the most magnificent in the English tongue. He is sometimes obscure, I admit; but why? His style is a Niagara Fall of words, and it is veiled by the mist that rises from the stupendous drench.’

‘Give me Swift for style,’ exclaimed Mr. Webber, a gentleman whom I have before described, with long whiskers and a glass in his eye.

‘Pray do not be drawn into the discussion,’ said Mrs. Webber, calling across to him.

‘I beg your pardon? You mentioned----’ exclaimed Mr. Wedmold.

‘I said Swift. Give me Swift for style,’ rejoined Mr. Webber, pulling down one whisker.

‘Swift has no style,’ said Mr. Wedmold. ‘Swift wrote as he thought, as he would speak; so did Defoe. Style is artificial. Talk to me of De Quincey’s style, of the style of Jeremy Taylor, of Johnson, of Macaulay; but I never want to hear of the style of Swift.’

‘Give me Goldsmith for style,’ exclaimed a little elderly man seated next to Mrs. Lee.

‘And give me Paris for style!’ said Mrs. Webber, in a loud voice.

There was a general laugh.

‘These arguments are incessantly happening,’ said Mrs. Lee. ‘I wish the captain would put a stop to them.’

‘Can you follow what has been said?’ whispered Alice.

‘Some of the names mentioned are familiar to me,’ I answered; ‘but I can collect no ideas from them.’

‘Shall we withdraw?’ said she.

I at once arose and gave her my arm. Her mother remained seated at the table. When I left my chair Sir Frederick Thompson stood up, and I paused, believing he was about to address me, but quickly perceived that his movement was a mark of respect. I had scarcely entered the Lees’ berth when someone tapped on the door, even whilst I still grasped the handle of it, and, on looking out, I perceived that it was the steward or servant who waited upon the captain.

‘Captain Ladmore’s compliments, madam; he wishes to know if it will be convenient to you to visit him in his cabin presently?’

‘I will visit him with pleasure,’ I replied; and, closing the door, I turned to Alice Lee and said, ‘What can the captain want?’

‘Do not be nervous, dear. I will go with you if you wish, or mother shall accompany you. He intends nothing but kindness, you may be sure.’

‘I dread,’ I exclaimed, putting my hand upon my heart, ‘to be sent into another ship.’

‘No, no; he will not do that.’

‘What would become of me in another ship? I shall be without friends, and my loneliness will be the darker for the memories which I shall take away from this vessel. And what will they do with me on board another ship? Where will they take me? Wherever I arrive I shall be friendless. Oh, I hope the captain does not mean to send me away.’

‘Do not fear. It is not likely that he will send you away until your memory returns and enables you to tell him who you are and where your home is.’

I placed a rug over her knees, and sat at her side and waited. Presently Mrs. Lee entered the berth.

‘Captain Ladmore has asked me to say he is ready to see you, my dear,’ said she.

‘Will you go with Agnes, mother?’ said Alice.

‘But Captain Ladmore does not want to see _me_, my love,’ exclaimed her mother; then, looking from me to her daughter, the good little woman cried, ‘Oh, yes! I will go with you, Agnes. Give me your arm.’