Margaret laughed. She had never slept in the daytime in her life, except in illness. She could not conceive of it, in the case of a young person, full of occupation, with a hundred things to think about, and twenty books at a time that she wanted to read. She thought that regular daily solitude must be the most delightful, the most improving thing in the world. She had always envied the privilege of people who could command solitude; and now, for the first time in her life, she was going to enjoy it, and try to profit by it.

"You began yesterday, I think," said Maria. "How did you like it?"

"It was no fair trial. I felt restless at having the house in my charge; and I was thinking of Hester perpetually; and then I did not know but that some of the Greys might come in at any moment: and besides, I was so busy considering whether I was making the most of the precious hours, that I really did next to nothing all day."

"But you looked sadly tired at night, Miss Margaret," said Morris. "I never saw you more fit for bed after any party or ball."

Maria smiled. She knew something of the fatigues, as well as the pleasures, of solitude. Margaret smiled too; but she said it would be quite another thing when the family were settled, and when it should have become a habit to spend the morning hours alone; and to this Maria fully agreed.

Morris thought that people's liking or not liking to be alone depended much on their having easy or irksome thoughts in their minds. Margaret answered gaily, that in that case, she was pretty sure of liking solitude. She was made grave by a sigh and a shake of the head from Morris.

"Morris, what do you mean?" said Margaret, apprehensively. "Why do you sigh and shake your head? Why should not I have easy thoughts as often as I sit in that chair?"

"We never know, Miss Margaret, my dear, how things will turn out. Do you remember Miss Stevenson, that married a gentleman her family all thought a great deal of, and he turned out a swindler, and--?"

The girls burst out a-laughing, and Maria a.s.sured Morris that she could answer for no accident of that kind happening with regard to Mr Hope.

Morris laughed too, and said she did not mean that, but only that she never saw anybody more confident of everything going right than Miss Stevenson and all her family; and within a month after the wedding, they were in the deepest distress. That was what she meant: but there were many other ways of distress happening.

"There is death, my dears," she said. "Remember death, Miss Margaret."

"Indeed, Morris, I do," said Margaret. "I never thought so much of death as I have done since Mr Hope's accident, when I believed death was coming to make us all miserable; and the more I have since recoiled from it, the oftener has the thought come back."

"That is all right, my dear: all very natural. It does not seem natural to undertake any great new thing in life, without reminding one's self of the end that must come to all our doings. However, I trust my master and mistress, and you, have many a happy year to live."

"I like those words, Morris. I like to hear you speak of your master and mistress, it has such a domestic sound! Does it not make one feel at home, Maria? Yes, Morris, there I shall sit, and feel so at ease! so at home, once more!"

"But there may be other--." Morris stopped, and changed her mood. She stepped to the closet, and opened the door, to show Miss Young the provision of shelves and pegs; and pointed out the part of the room where she had hoped there would be a sofa. She should have liked that Miss Margaret should have had a sofa to lie down on when she pleased.

It seemed to her the only thing wanting. Margaret gaily declared that nothing was wanting. She had never seen a room more entirely to her taste, though she had inhabited some that were grander.

By the time the little breakfast-room had been duly visited, and it had been explained that the other small parlour must necessarily be kept for a waiting-room for Mr Hope's patients, and the young ladies had returned to the drawing-room, Maria was in full flow of sympathy with the housekeeping interests and ideas which occupied, or rather amused, her companion. Women do inevitably love housekeeping, unless educational or other impediments interfere with their natural tastes.

Household management is to them the object of their talents, the subject of their interests, the vehicle of their hopes and fears, the medium through which their affections are manifested, and much of their benevolence gratified. If it be true, as has been said, that there is no good quality of a woman's heart and mind which is not necessary to perfect housekeeping, it follows that there is no power of the mind or affection of the heart which may not be gratified in the course of its discharge. As Margaret and her guest enjoyed their pheasant, their table drawn close to the sofa and the fire, that Maria might be saved the trouble of moving, their talk was of tradespeople, of shopping at Deerbrook, and the market at Birmingham; of the kitchen and store-room, and the winter and summer arrangements of the table. The foot-boy, whom Margaret was teaching to wait, often forgot his function, and stood still to listen, and at last left the room deeply impressed with the wisdom of his instructor and her guest. When the dinner and the wine were gone, they sang, they gossiped, they quizzed. The Greys were sacred, of course; but many an anecdote came out, told honestly and with good-nature, of dear old Mrs Enderby, and her talent for being pleased; of Mrs Rowland's transactions abroad and at home--all regulated by the principle of eclipsing the Greys; and of Mrs Howell's and Miss Miskin's fine sentiments, and extraordinary pieces of news. Margaret produced some of her brother-in-law's outlines, which she had picked up and preserved--sketches of the children, in the oddest att.i.tudes of children--of Dr Levitt, resting his book on the end of his nose, as he read in his study-chair--of Mrs Plumstead, exasperated by the arrival of an illegible letter--of almost every oddity in the place. Then out came the pencils, and the girls supplied omissions. They sketched Mr Hope himself; listening to an old woman's theory of her own case; they sketched each other. Mr Enderby was almost the only person omitted altogether, in conversation and on paper.

"Where can I have hidden my work bag?" asked Maria, after tea.

"You laid it beside you, and I put it away," said Margaret. "I wanted to see whether you could spend a whole afternoon without the feel of your thimble. You shall have it again now, for you never once asked for it between dinner and tea."

"I forgot it: but now you must give it me. I must finish my collar, or I shall not duly honour your sister in my first call. We can talk as well working as idle."

"Cannot I help you? Our affairs are all in such dreadfully perfect order, that I have not a st.i.tch of work to do. I see a hole in your glove: let me mend it."

"Do; and when you have done that, there is the other. Two years hence, how you will wonder that there ever was a time when you had not a st.i.tch of work in the house! Wedding clothes last about two years, and then they all wear out together. I wish you joy of the work you will have to do then--if nothing should come between you and it."

"What should come between us and it?" said Margaret, struck by the tone in which Maria spoke the last words. "Are you following Morris's lead?

Are you going to say,--'Remember death, Miss Margaret?'"

"Oh, no; but there are other things which happen sometimes besides death. I beg your pardon, Margaret, if I am impertinent--"

"How should you be impertinent? You, the most intimate friend but one that I have in the world! You mean marriage of course; that I may marry within these same two years? Any one may naturally say so, I suppose, to a girl whose sister is just married: and in another person's case it would seem to me probable enough, but I a.s.sure you, Maria, I do not feel as if it was at all likely that I should marry."

"I quite believe you, Margaret. I have no doubt you feel so, and that you will feel so till--. But, dear, you may one day find yourself feeling very differently without a moment's warning; and that day may happen within two years. Such things have been known."

"If there was any one--" said Margaret, simply--"if I had ever seen any one for whom I could fancy myself feeling as Hester did--"

"If there was any one!"--repeated Maria, looking up in some surprise.

"My dear Margaret, do you mean to say there is no one?"

"Yes, I do; I think so. I know what you mean, Maria. I understand your face and your voice. But I do think it is very hard that one cannot enjoy a pleasant friendship with anybody without seeing people on the watch for something more. It is so very painful to have such ideas put into one's mind, to spoil all one's intercourse--to throw restraint over it--to mix up selfishness with it! It is so wrong to interfere between those who might and would be the most useful and delightful companions to each other, without having a thought which need put constraint between them! Those who so interfere have a great deal to answer for.

They do not know what mischief they may be doing--what pain they may be giving while they are gossiping, and making remarks to one another about what they know nothing at all about. I have no patience with such meddling!"

"So I perceive, indeed," replied Maria, somewhat amused. "But, Margaret, you have been enlarging a good deal on what I said. Not a syllable was spoken about any remarks, any observations between any people; or even about reference to any particular person. I alone must be subject to all this displeasure, and even I did not throw out a single hint about any friend of yours."

"No, you did not; that is all very true," said Margaret, blushing: "but neither was I vexed with you;--at least, not so much as with some others. I was hasty."

"You were, indeed," said Maria, laughing. "I never witnessed such an outburst from you before."

"And you shall not see such another; but I was answering less what you said than what I have reason to suppose is in the minds of several other people."

"In their minds? They have not told you their thoughts, then. And _several_ other people, too! Why, Margaret, I really think it is not very reasonable in you to find fault with others for thinking something which they have not troubled you to listen to, and which is so natural, that it has struck 'several' of them. Surely, Margaret, you must be a little, just a very little, touchy upon the matter."

"Touchy! What should make me touchy?"

"Ay, what?"

"I do a.s.sure you, Maria, nothing whatever has pa.s.sed between that person and me which has anything more than the commonest--No, I will not say the commonest friendship, because I believe ours is a very warm and intimate friendship; but indeed it is nothing more. You may be sure that, if it had been otherwise, I should not have said a word upon the whole matter, even to you; and I would not have allowed even you to speak ten words to me about it. Are you satisfied now?"

"I am satisfied that you any what you think."

"Oh, Maria! what a sigh! If you have no objection, I should like to know the meaning of that sigh."

"I was thinking of 'the course of true love.'"

"But not that it 'never does run smooth.' That is not true. Witness Hester's."

"Dear Margaret, be not presumptuous! Consider how early the days of that love are yet."

"And that love in their case has only just leaped out of the fountain, and can hardly be said to have begun its course. Well! may Heaven smile on it! But tell me about that course of love which made you sigh as you did just now."

"What can I tell you about it? And yet, you shall know, if you like, how it appears to me."

"Oh, tell me! I shall see whether you would have understood Hester's case."

"The first strange thing is, that every woman approaches this crisis of her life as unawares as if she were the first that ever loved."

"And yet all girls are brought up to think of marriage as almost the only event in life. Their minds are stuffed with thoughts of it almost before they have had time to gain any other ideas."

"Merely as means to ends low enough for their comprehension. It is not marriage--wonderful, holy, mysterious marriage--that their minds are full of, but connection with somebody or something which will give them money, and ease, and station, and independence of their parents. This has nothing to do with love. I was speaking of love--the grand influence of a woman's life, but whose name is a mere empty sound to her till it becomes, suddenly, secretly, a voice which shakes her being to the very centre--more awful, more tremendous, than the crack of doom."

"But why? Why so tremendous?"