"I ask your pardon," replied Bessy, humbly. "Sometimes, when I've thought o' my life, and the little pleasure I've had in it, I've believed that, maybe, I was one of those doomed to die by the falling of a star from heaven; 'And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.' One can bear pain and sorrow better if one thinks it has been prophesied long before for one: somehow, then it seems as if my pain was needed for the fulfilment; otherways it seems all sent for nothing."

'I ask your pardon,' replied Bessy humbly. 'Sometimes, when I've thought o' my life, and the little pleasure I've had in it, I think I'm one of them as is prophesied to die in Revelations. Otherwise it seems all for nothing.'
