Here Maggie used to come and sit and dream in any scarce half-hour
of leisure. Here she came to cry, when her little heart was overfull at her
mother's sharp fault-finding, or when bidden to keep out of the way, and
not be troublesome. She used to look over the swelling expanse of moor, and
the tears were dried up by the soft low-blowing wind which came sighing
along it. She forgot her little home griefs to wonder why a brown-purple
shadow always streaked one particular part in the fullest sunlight; why the
cloud-shadows always seemed to be wafted with a sidelong motion; or she
would imagine what lay beyond those old gray holy hills, which seemed to
bear up the white clouds of Heaven on which the angels flew abroad. Or she
would look straight up through the quivering air, as long as she could bear
its white dazzling, to try and see God's throne in that unfathomable and
infinite depth of blue. She thought she should see it blaze forth sudden
and glorious, if she were but full of faith. She always came down from the
thorn, comforted, and meekly gentle.
But there was danger of the child becoming dreamy, and finding her pleasure
in life in reverie, not in action, or endurance, or the holy rest which
comes after both, and prepares for further striving or bearing. Mrs.
Buxton's kindness prevented this danger just in time. It was partly out of
interest in Maggie, but also partly to give Erminia a companion, that she
wished the former to come down to Combehurst.
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