Margaret Vincent

g with it as though it were a cockle-shell. Hannah was not there, only the boy who went out with the milk in the morning. He sat up behind and took

position, even though they had spent their money or had done undesirable things, as something in her father's manner seemed to imply; for it made her father's life appear a more important thing, not to her, but in the world, that might otherwise have thought it merely one of the details of the farm at Chidhurst. She looked at the moor as they drove beside it. The clumps of broom and gorse had come out since yesterday full and golden in the sunshine. The fresh green of the whortleberries was showing it

n, and in the porch, just as Margaret had known she would be, her mother stood waiting. Mr

as smarter than usual. She wore her gray cashmere and the brooch with the topaz in it, and one of her best hemstitched hand

Mr. Garratt came over this afternoon. Tea has been

e seemed uncomfortably conscious. Beside her, brisk and business-like, with a happy, self-satisfied expression on his face, stood a youthful-looking man of eight-and-twenty. He was fair and had a smart air with him. His hair was carefully parted in the middle and curled a little at the tips. He had a small mustache, which he stroked a great deal and pulled back towards his ears. He wore a cutaway coat and

nah said. "However, it's to be hoped you've enjoyed yourselves." Her man

You will like to meet him, father; he has a

quaintance, I'm sure," Mr. Garratt said. "I

dering whether this lively young man could

t went on, in a genial tone. "Have often heard of you,

," Margaret ans

g like a railway journey, with the country at the end of it, for starting an appetite," to which sh

m at Woodside Farm. The silence puzzled Mr. Garratt a little, this being his first visit; then h

ed Mr. Vincent, thinking perhaps that h

. Vincent answered

to go up. I dare say you find the same? Did

d at the

u know." Mr. Garratt thought t

t," Mr. Vincent

here, father?" M

t to Westmin

Abbey," Mr. Garratt put in. "What

yet," Margaret answered; "it w

mind too soon," Mr. Garratt remarked, cheeril

e people to know at once what t

mes." Whereupon the color came to her face and amiability to her expression.

answer for her, and with extreme

o hear it,"

Garratt asked Margaret, as if h

" she answered. "I

iniquity," Hann

t he remembered that the Petersfield young man was a suitor, and had

hakespeare's pla

f them," Hannah remarked,

a conciliatory voice, "and it may be said that to read him, or even to see him acted, makes us famili

occasion to do more; and as for play-acting teaching us history, once people have taken to their graves they might be left to lie in them and not be brought out and used as puppets

sending another furtive look at Margaret, "and I never think m

?" she asked, quickly putting down the teap

Moreover, I believe in seeing the world as it is, rather than in holding off because it is not as one want

the evil-doer-" Hannah began, as if she w

ess, Miss Barton-" Mr. Garratt stopped, for it

od-tempered young man with an eye to the main chance among them. But Mr. Garratt would do well enough for Hannah-in fact, nothing could be better, for evidently he was not narrow, and this might have a good effect upon her. For himself and his daughter and for his wif

er to him, she put her head inside t

or shall I come to yo

ndow; there are a good many things to say." She felt as if heaven had flash

bad from Lond

all probably be going away very soon and that Margaret is grown up, I think you ought to know about them: one can never tell what may happen. There is not much to their credit to say-or to mine, I fear," he added, and t

is behind," she said; "I don

y occasion t

k in her clear eyes, she said the one thing that hurt him in all the years he kne

yself good enough. My people led useless, extravagant lives, and my own has not been much better. I have f

id, slowly,

Cyril dies I shall not alter my name-what good would a title be to me? I have no son to com

en went on, thoughtfully: "She is changing in herself; I can feel it. She'll not be content

," he said. "By-the-way, an old friend of mine has taken the vicara

he had been so well content with her own station in life, and had never wished to see it eithe

ch privileges as we had under our feet; and as for me, I haven't even enough grace to take me to ch

ds up slowly to

never know what you have bee

answered; "

u should be anything but jus

ll Hannah about this," he went on, "and I don't suppose Margaret will. There's no reaso

wered, "unless she finds it out; she'd only be

e porch and looked at the garden and the beechwood she loved rising high beyond it. Mr

for a little str

words. She went a step forwa

d, "I am goin

o listen to the song of birds, to belong to the flowers that were springing from the earth. She was different altogether from Hannah. A dozen possibilities darted through his mind. His hea

vere and unflinching, "if you want to see th