I felt her tears.
I tried to withdraw my hand, but she held it with an angry pull, continuing
to weep and kiss it.
'Do you wish to say anything, my poor Meg?' I asked.
'Nout, Miss,' she sobbed gently; and she continued to kiss my hand and
weep. But suddenly she said, 'I won't thank Milly, for it's a' _you_; it
baint her, she hadn't the thought--no, no, it's a' you, Miss. I cried
hearty in the dark last night, thinkin' o' the apples, and the way I
knocked them awa' wi' a pur o' my foot, the day father rapped me ower the
head wi' his stick; it was kind o' you and very bad o' me. I wish you'd
beat me, Miss; ye're better to me than father or mother--better to me than
a'; an' I wish I could die for you, Miss, for I'm not fit to look at you.'
I was surprised. I began to cry. I could have hugged poor Meg.
I did not know her history. I have never learned it since. She used to
talk with the most utter self-abasement before me. It was no religious
feeling--it was a kind of expression of her love and worship of me--all the
more strange that she was naturally very proud. There was nothing she
would not have borne from me except the slightest suspicion of her entire
devotion, or that she could in the most trifling way wrong or deceive me.
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