"As you should do. I’ve often thought if that blessed angel had given me a pledge, that I could have better stood up afore the trials of life. But there’s only the Lord for me in this world now. True, Mr. Fogo talks of coming to see me again some day; but I don’t suppose he will. What can the likes of me do for the likes of such a man as him? Besides, parson would never forgive me if I had him here again." He wandered off, and Margaret, who instantly reflected the tone of other minds with the swiftness common to sympathetic and not very intelligent people, went saddened on her way. Some light expired out of the earth and sky for her. She could not use reason and remember that Mr. Shillabeer was--in a word--Mr. Shillabeer. She merely felt that she had met and touched hearts with an unhappy old man. Therefore herself instantly grew a little unhappy and a little older. Chance objects, as they will at such times, intruded and carried on the dominant mood. A thing beside her path chimed with Madge’s emotion and lifted itself as a mournful mark and reminder by the way. Among reddening banks of bracken that spread in a tangle above a little hollow, where scarlet and purple of the bramble fluttered, and sloes took the hue of ripeness, there thrust up an object, livid and gigantic. It resembled some monstrous kindred of the fern that had taken root and risen here. But this bleached frond, so regular and perfect in its graduated symmetry of structure, had once supported an animal, not a vegetable organism. Margaret saw the backbone and ribs of a horse scoured into spotless whiteness by carrion crow, by frost, by rain; and the spectacle added another shade of darkness to her mind. She thought upon it a little while; then there came in sight part of the population of Warren House, and the twins, Samson and Richard, succeeded in lifting their future sister-in-law’s spirits nearer to gaiety. The children were sailing boats in a pond, but they abandoned the sport at sight of Margaret, because they had secrets for her. "You’ll promise faithful not to tell, won’t ’e?" asked Richard. "If you don’t promise, us won’t tell ’e," said Samson. "’Tis the present us have got against David’s wedding-day," said Richard. "But you must say ’strike me dead if I’ll tell,’" added Samson. "Mother gived us sixpence to buy it with, and Joshua got it last time he was to Tavistock," explained Richard; "but ’tis our present, mind." "You ought to give us something if we tell you," suggested Samson; but Madge shook her head. "I shall know soon enough," she answered. "That you won’t, then," replied Samson. "You won’t know for six weeks." "You might try to guess and give us a ha’penny each time you lose," suggested Richard. "Yes, you might," declared Samson. They walked beside her and, since nothing was to be made out of the secret, presently told Madge that their gift was a shaving-brush.