But love for her grandchild conquered. There was nothing in the way of
her advancement now, and when at the grave she knelt her down to weep,
as the bystanders thought, over her dead, she was breathing there a
vow that never so long as she lived should the secret of Maggie's
birth be given to the world unless some circumstance then unforeseen
should make it absolutely and unavoidably necessary. To see Maggie
grow up into a beautiful, refined, and cultivated woman was now the
great object of Hagar's life; and, fearing lest by some inadvertent
word or action the secret should be disclosed, she wished to live by
herself, where naught but the winds of heaven could listen to the
incoherent whisperings which made her fellow-servants accuse her of
insanity.
Down in the deepest shadow of the woods, and distant from the old
stone house nearly a mile, was a half-ruined cottage which, years
before, had been occupied by miners, who had dug in the hillside
for particles of yellow ore which they fancied to be gold. Long and
frequent were the night revels said to have been held in the old hut,
which had at last fallen into bad repute and been for years deserted.
To one like Hagar, however, there was nothing intimidating in its
creaking old floors, its rattling windows and noisome chimney, where
the bats and the swallows built their nests; and when one day Madam
Conway proposed giving little Maggie into the charge of a younger and
less nervous person than herself she made no objection, but surprised
her mistress by asking permission to live by herself in the "cottage
by the mine," as it was called.
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