“I got her to bed, ma’am, quite comfortable I thought; but I stopped about doing little things, for I saw she was wakeful; and then all at once she got up and called me and caught me by the arm. ‘Ford,’ she says, looking in my face very serious, ‘who was it that said, May he grow up an idiot and kill you? Who was it, who was it?’ ‘Oh, my lady, I don’t know,’ I said; ‘I never heard the words before.’ ‘It was a dreadful thing to say,’ she cries, always looking at me. ‘Ford, do you think words like that ever come true?’ Perhaps I was too bold, Miss Hill; but I spoke up and said, ‘No, my lady, I’m sure they don’t: for if they did God Almighty would be putting us in the power of the worst and dreadfullest--and He would never do that.’ ‘No, Ford, He would never do that,’ she said, with the tears in her dear eyes. Oh, Miss Hill, there’s some change coming. I don’t know what it is. And now she’s trying all her keys upon that box we brought from the Park. We’ve not been able to find one that would open it; but I got another bunch just now, and while she was busy I thought I’d come and call you. Don’t be frightened, Miss Hill. I don’t think it’s a change for the worse.” “Oh, Ford,” said Agnes, “it is just the bitterness of life. It’s a change that will come too late. Oh, my boy! it must be his dear spirit that is moving his mother’s heart.” “Let’s hope it’s something better than that. Let’s hope it means good news,” said the woman, who knew a great deal of the family in her long service, and nearly, if not all, its mysteries. But Agnes, whose heart was very heavy, only shook her head. When she went into her sister’s room, Mary was standing against the light, a white figure wrapped in a white dressing-gown. Her partial confusion of mind, the subdued and quiet life she had led, her exemption from strong emotions, had kept an air of comparative youth about her. Her hair was partially grey, but it gave no appearance of age to the face, which had the appearance of one purified and refined from earthliness by long misfortune and trouble. She had lighted a number of candles, which encircled her with light, and was standing looking down into the box which was open on the table with a strange air of tremulous discovery, indecision, terror, and joy, like one who has found out some astonishing thing which she cannot believe yet knows to be true. She turned half round with a warning movement, as if begging not to be disturbed, then suddenly putting out her hand drew Agnes close to her. “What is that? Do you know what it is?” she said. The only answer Agnes made was with a burst of tears: “Oh, Mary! Oh, my dear! my dear!” she cried.