"I mean what I say, Margaret. You cannot but be aware how much more you have to communicate to Maria than to me. Our conversation soon comes to a stand: and I must say I have had much occasion to admire your great talent for silence of late. Maria has still to learn your accomplishments in that direction, I fancy."

Margaret quietly told the little girls that she would write a note to Maria, with her answer.

"You must not do that," said f.a.n.n.y. "Miss Young said you must not.

That was the reason why she sent you a message instead of a note--that you might not have to write back again, when a message would do as well."

Margaret, nevertheless, sat down at the writing-table.

"You go to-day, of course," said Hester, in the voice of forced calmness which Margaret knew so well. "The little girls may as well stay and dine, after all, as I shall otherwise be alone in the evening."

"I shall not go to-day," said Margaret, without turning her head.

"You will not stay away on my account, of course."

"I have said that I shall go on Thursday."

"Thursday! that is almost a week hence. Now, Margaret, do not be pettish, and deny yourself what you know you like best. Do not be a baby, and quarrel with your supper. I had far rather you should go to-night, and have done with it, than that you should wait till Thursday, thinking all day long till then that you are obliging me by staying with me. I cannot bear that."

"I wish I knew what you could bear," said Margaret, in a voice which the children could not hear. "I wish I knew how I could save you pain."

The moment the words were out, Margaret was sorry for them. She was aware that the best kindness to her sister was to take as little notice as possible of her discontents--to turn the conversation--to avoid scenes, or any remarks which could bring them on. It was hard-- sometimes it seemed impossible--to speak calmly and lightly, while every pulse was throbbing, and every fibre trembling with fear and wretchedness; but yet it was best to a.s.sume such calmness and lightness.

Margaret now asked the little girls, while she sealed her note, how their patchwork was getting on--thus far the handsomest patchwork quilt she had ever seen.

"Oh, it will be far handsomer before it is done. Mrs Howell has found up some beautiful pieces of print for us--remnants of her first morning-gown after she was married, and of her poor dear Howell's last dressing-gown, as she says. We were quite sorry to take those; but she would put them up for us; and she is to see the quilt sometimes in return."

"But Miss Nares's parcel was the best, cousin Margaret. Such a quant.i.ty of nankeen for the ground, and the loveliest chintz for the centre medallion! Is not it, Mary?"

"Oh, lovely! Do you know, cousin Margaret, Miss Nares and Miss Flint both cried when they heard how nearly you were drowned! I am sure, I had no idea they would have cared so much."

"Nor I, my dear. But I dare say they feel kindly towards anyone saved from great danger."

"Not everybody," said f.a.n.n.y; "only you, because you are a great favourite. Everybody says you are a great favourite. Papa cried last night--just a little tear or two, as gentlemen do--when he told mamma how sorry everybody in Deerbrook would have been if you had died."

"There! that will do," said Hester, struggling between her better and worse feelings--her remorse of this morning, and her present jealousy-- and losing her temper between the two. "You have said quite enough about what you do not understand, my dears. I cannot have you make so free with your cousin's name, children."

The little girls looked at each other in wonder; and Hester thought she detected a lurking smile.

"I see what you are thinking, children. Yes, look, the rain is nearly over; and then you may go and tell Mrs Howell and Miss Nares, and all the people you see on your way home, that they had better attend to their own concerns than pretend to understand what would have been felt if your cousin had been drowned. I wonder at their impertinence."

"Are you in earnest, cousin Hester? Shall we go and tell them so?"

"No; she is not in earnest," said Margaret. "But before you go, Morris shall give you some pieces for your quilt--some very pretty ones, such as she knows I can spare."

Margaret rang, and Morris took the children up-stairs, to choose for themselves out of Margaret's drawer of pieces. When the door had closed behind them, Margaret said--"Sister, do not make me wish that I had died under the ice yesterday."

"Margaret, how dare you say anything so wicked?"

"If it be wicked, G.o.d forgive me! I was wretched enough before--I would fain have never come to life again: and now you almost make me believe that you would have been best pleased if I never had."

At this moment Hope entered. He had left them in a far different mood: it made him breathless to see his wife's face of pa.s.sion, and Margaret's of woe.

"Hear her!" exclaimed Hester. "She says I should have been glad to have lost her yesterday!"

"Have mercy upon me!" cried Margaret, in excessive agitation. "You oppress me beyond what I can bear. I cannot bear on as I used to do.

My strength is gone, and you give me none. You take away what I had!"

"Will you hear me spoken to in this way?" cried Hester, turning to her husband.

"I will."

Margaret's emotion prevented her hearing this, or caring who was by.

She went on--"You leave me nothing--nothing but yourself--and you abuse my love for you. You warn me against love--against marriage--you chill my very soul with terror at it. I have found a friend in Maria; and you poison my comfort in my friendship, and insult my friend. There is not an infant in a neighbour's house but you become jealous of it the moment I take it in my arms. There is not a flower in your garden, not a book on my table, that you will let me love in peace. How ungenerous--while you have one to cherish and who cherishes you, that you will have me lonely!--that you quarrel with all who show regard to me!--that you refuse me the least solace, when my heart is breaking with its loneliness! Oh, it is cruel!"

"Will you hear this, Edward?"

"I will, because it is the truth. For once, Hester, you must hear another's mind; you have often told your own."

"G.o.d knows why I was saved yesterday," murmured Margaret; "for a more desolate creature does not breathe."

Hope leaned against the wall. Hester relieved her torment of mind with reproaches of Margaret.

"You do not trust me," she cried; "it is you who make me miserable. You go to others for the comfort you ought to seek in me. You place that confidence in others which ought to be mine alone. You are cheered when you learn that the commonest gossips in Deerbrook care about you, and you set no value on your own sister's feelings for you. You have faith and charity for people out of doors, and mistrust and misconstruction for those at home. I am the injured one, Margaret, not you."

"Margaret," said Hope, "your sister speaks for herself. I think that you are the injured one, as Hester herself will soon agree. So far from having anything to reproach you with, I honour your forbearance,-- unremitting till this hour,--I mourn that we cannot, if we would, console you in return. But whatever I can do shall be done. Your friendships, your pursuits, shall be protected. If we persecute your affections at home, I will take care that you are allowed their exercise abroad. Rely upon me, and do not think yourself utterly lonely while you have a brother."

"I have been very selfish," said Margaret, recovering herself at the first word of kindness; "wretchedness makes me selfish, I think."

She raised herself up on the sofa, and timidly held out her hand to her sister. Hester thrust it away. Margaret uttered a cry of agony, such as had never been heard from her since her childhood. Hope fell on the floor--he had fainted at the sound.

Even now there was no one but Morris who understood it. Margaret reproached herself bitterly for her selfishness--for her loss of the power of self-control. Hester's remorse, however greater in degree, was of its usual kind, strong and brief. She repeated, as she had done before, that she made her husband wretched--that she should never have another happy moment--that she wished he had never seen her. For the rest of the day she was humbled, contrite, convinced that she should give way to her temper no more. Her eyes filled when her husband spoke tenderly to her, and her conduct to Margaret was one act of supplication. But a lesser degree of this same kind of penitence had produced no permanent good effect before; and there was no security that the present paroxysm would have a different result.

Morris had seen that the children were engaged up-stairs when she came down at Margaret's silent summons, to help to revive her master. When she saw that there had been distress before there was illness, she took her part. She resolved that no one but herself should hear his first words, and sent the ladies away when she saw that his consciousness was returning. All the world might have heard his first words. He recovered himself with a vigorous effort, swallowed a gla.s.s of wine, and within a few minutes was examining a patient in the waiting-room. There the little girls saw him as they pa.s.sed the half-open door, on their way out with their treasure of chintz and print; and having heard some bustle below, they carried home word that they believed Mr Hope had been doing something to somebody which had made somebody faint; and Sophia, shuddering, observed how horrid it must be to be a surgeon's wife.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

WARNINGS.

Maria Young's lodging at the farrier's had one advantage over many better dwellings;--it was pleasanter in Winter than in Summer. There was little to find fault with in the tiny sitting-room after candles were lighted. The fire burned clear in the grate; and when the screen was up, there were no draughts. This screen was quite a modern improvement. When f.a.n.n.y and Mary Grey had experienced the pleasure of surprising Sophia with a token of sisterly affection, in the shape of a piece of India-rubber, and their mother with a token of filial affection, in the form of a cotton-box, they were unwilling to stop, and looked round to see whether they could not present somebody with a token of some other sort of affection. Sophia was taken into their counsels; and she, being aware of how Miss Young's candle flared when the wind was high, devised this screen. The carpenter made the frame; Sydney covered it with canvas and black paper for a ground; and the little girls pasted on it all the drawings and prints they could muster. Here was the Dargle, an everlasting waterfall, that looked always the same in the sunny-coloured print. There was Morland's Woodcutter, with his tall figure, his pipe, his dog, and his f.a.ggot, with the snow lying all around him. Two or three cathedrals were interspersed; and, in the midst of them, and larger than any of them, a silhouette of Mr Grey, with the eyelash wonderfully like, and the wart upon his nose not to be mistaken. Then there was Charles the First taking leave of his family; and, on either side of this, an evening primrose in water-colours, by Mary, and a head of Terror, with a square mouth and starting eyes, in crayon, by f.a.n.n.y. Mrs Grey produced some gay border which the paper-hanger had left over when the attics were last furnished; and Sydney cut out in white paper a huntsman with his whip in the air, a fox, a gate, and two hounds. Mr Grey pleaded, that, having contributed his face, he had done all that could be expected of him: nevertheless, he brought home one day, on his return from market, a beautiful Stream of Time, which made the children dance round their screen. It was settled at first that this would n.o.bly ornament the whole of one side; but it popped into Sydney's head, just as he was falling asleep one night, how pretty it would be to stick it round with the planets. So the planets were cut out in white, and shaded with Indian ink. There was no mistaking Saturn with his ring, or Jupiter with his moons. At length, all was done, and the cook was glad to hear that no more paste would be wanted, and the little girls might soon leave off giggling when Miss Young asked them, in the schoolroom, why they were jogging one another's elbows. Mr Grey spared one of his men to deposit the precious piece of handiwork at Miss Young's lodging; and there, when she went home one cold afternoon, she found the screen standing between the fire and the door, and, pinned on it, a piece of paper, inscribed, "A Token of friendly Affection."

This was not, however, the only, nor the first, gift with which Maria's parlour was enriched. Amidst all the bustle of furnishing the Hopes'

house, Margaret had found time to plan and execute a window-curtain for her friend's benefit; and another person--no other than Philip Enderby-- had sent in a chaise-longue, just the right size to stand between the fire and the table. It had gone hard with Maria to accept this last gift; but his nephew and nieces were Philip's plea of excuse for the act; and this plea cut her off from refusing: though in her heart she believed that neither the children nor ancient regard were in his thoughts when he did it, but rather Margaret's affection for her. For some time, this chaise-longue was a couch of thorns; but now affairs had put on a newer aspect still, and Maria forgot her own perplexities and troubles in sympathy with her friend.

There was nothing to quarrel with in the look of the chaise-longue, when Margaret entered Maria's room in the twilight, in the afternoon of the appointed Thursday.

"Reading by fire-light?" said Margaret.