"Certainly not!" said Margaret, heartily. "I will not say a word, Cousin Sophronia, of course!"

"He would wish to know!" said Miss Sophronia, smothering a sob into a sigh. "John Montfort would be furious if he thought I was ill-treated, and we were concealing it from him. He is a lion when once roused. Ah! I should be sorry for that woman. But forgiveness is a duty, my dear, and I forgive. See! I am myself again. Quite--" with a hysterical giggle--"quite myself! I--I will take the vinaigrette to my room with me, I think, my dear. Thank you! Dear Margaret! cherub child! how you have comforted me!" She went, and Margaret heard her sniffing along the entry; heard, and told herself she had no business to notice such things; and went back rather ruefully to her b.u.t.tonholes.

CHAPTER V.

A NEW TYPE.

"My child, I thought you were never coming again!" said Mrs. Peyton. "Do you know that it is a week since I have seen you? I have been destroyed,--positively destroyed, with solitude."

"I am so sorry," said Margaret. "I could not come before; truly I could not, Mrs. Peyton. And how have you been?"

Mrs. Peyton leaned back on her pillows, with a little laugh. "Who cares how I have been?" she said, lightly. "What does it matter how I have been? Tell me some news, Margaret. I must have news. You are alive, you move, and have your being; tell me something that will make me feel alive, too."

Margaret looked at the lady, and thought she looked very much alive. She was a vision of rose colour, from the silk jacket fluttering with ribbons, to the pink satin that shimmered through the lace bed-spread.

The rosy colour almost tinted her cheeks, which were generally the hue of warm ivory. Her hair, like crisped threads of gold, was brought down low on her forehead, hiding any lines that might have been seen there; it was crowned by a bit of cobweb lace, that seemed too slight to support the pink ribbon that held it together. The lady's hands were small, and exquisitely formed, and she wore several rings of great value; her eyes were blue and limpid, her features delicate and regular.

Evidently, this had been a great beauty. To Margaret, gazing at her in honest admiration, she was still one of the most beautiful creatures that could be seen.

Mrs. Peyton laughed under the girl's simple look of pleasure. "You like my new jacket?" she said. "The doctor never so much as noticed it this morning. I think I shall send him away, and get another, who has eyes in his head. You are the only person who really cares for my clothes, Margaret, and they are the only interest I have in the world."

"I wish you wouldn't talk so!" said Margaret, colouring. "You don't mean it, and why will you say it?"

"I do mean it!" said the beautiful lady. "I mean every word of it.

There's nothing else to care for, except you, you dear little old-fashioned thing. I like you, because you are quaint and truthful.

Have you seen my pink pearl? You are not half observant, that's the trouble with you, Margaret Montfort."

She held out her slender hand; Margaret took it, and bent over it affectionately. "Oh, what a beautiful ring!" she cried. "I never saw a pink pearl like this before, Mrs. Peyton, so brilliant, and such a deep rose colour. Isn't it very wonderful?"

"The jeweller thought so," said Mrs. Peyton. "He asked enough for it; it might have been the companion to Cleopatra's. The opal setting is pretty, too, don't you think? And I have some new stones. You will like to see those."

She took up a small bag of chamois leather, that lay on the bed beside her, opened it, and a handful of precious stones rolled out on the lace spread. Margaret caught after one and another in alarm. "Oh! Oh, Mrs.

Peyton, they frighten me! Why, this diamond--I never saw such a diamond.

It's as big as a pea."

"Imperfect!" said the lady. "A flaw in it, you see; but the colour is good, and it does just as well for a plaything, though I don't like flawed things, as a rule. This sapphire is a good one,--deep, you see; I like a deep sapphire."

"This light one is nearer your eyes," said Margaret, taking up a lovely clear blue stone.

"Flatterer! People used to say that once; a long time ago. Heigh ho, Margaret, don't ever grow old! Take poison, or throw yourself out of the window, but don't grow old. It's a shocking thing to do."

Margaret looked at her friend with troubled, affectionate eyes, and laid her hand on the jewelled fingers.

"Oh, I mean it!" said the lady, with a pretty little grimace. "I mean it, Miss Puritan. See! Here's a pretty emerald. But you haven't told me the news. Mr. Montfort is well always?"

"Always!" said Margaret. "We--we have a visitor just now, Mrs.

Peyton,--some one you know."

"Some one I know?" cried Mrs. Peyton. "I thought every one I knew was dead and buried. Who is it, child? Don't keep me in suspense. Can't you see that I am palpitating?"

She laughed, and looked so pretty, and so malicious, that Margaret wanted to kiss and to shake her at the same moment.

"It is a cousin of Uncle John's and of mine," she said; "Miss Sophronia Montfort."

"_What!_" cried Mrs. Peyton, sitting up in bed. "Sophronia Montfort? You are joking, Margaret."

a.s.sured that Margaret was not joking, she fell back again on her pillows. "Sophronia Montfort!" she said, laughing softly. "I have not heard of her since the flood. How does John--how does Mr. Montfort endure it, p.u.s.s.y? He was not always a patient man."

Margaret thought her uncle one of the most patient men she had ever seen.

"And how many men have you seen, little girl? Never mind! I will allow him all the qualities of the Patient Patriarch. He will need them all, if he is to have Sophronia long. I am sorry for you, p.u.s.s.y! Come over as often as you can to see me. I am dull, but there are worse things than dullness."

This was not very encouraging.

"She--Cousin Sophronia--sent you a great many messages," Margaret said, timidly. "She--is very anxious to see you, Mrs. Peyton. She would like to come over some morning, and spend an hour with you."

"If she does, I'll poison her!" said Mrs. Peyton, promptly. "Don't look shocked, Margaret Montfort; I shall certainly do as I say. Sophronia comes here at peril of her life, and you may tell her so with my compliments."

Margaret sat silent and distressed, not knowing what to say. She had known very few people in her quiet life, and this beautiful lady, whom she admired greatly, also puzzled her sadly.

"I cannot tell her that, can I, dear Mrs. Peyton?" she said, at last. "I shall tell her that you are not well,--that is true, most certainly,--and that you do not feel able to see her."

"Tell her what you please," said Emily Peyton, laughing again. "If she comes, I shall poison her,--that is my first and last word. Tell her?

Tell her that Emily Peyton is a wreck; that she lies here like a log, week after week, month after month, caring for nothing, no one caring for her, except a kind little girl, who is frightened at her wild talk.

I might try the poison on myself first, Margaret; what do you think of that?" Then, seeing Margaret's white, shocked face, she laughed again, and fell to tossing the gems into the air, and catching them as they fell. "It would be a pity, though, just when I have got all these new playthings. Did you bring a book to read to me, little girl? I can't abide reading, but I like to hear your voice. You have something, I see it in your guilty face. Poetry, I'll be bound. Out with it, witch! You hope to bring me to a sense of the error of my ways. Why, I used to read poetry, Margaret, by the dozen yards. Byron,--does any one read Byron nowadays?"

"My father was fond of Byron," said Margaret. "He used to read me bits of 'Childe Harold' and the 'Corsair;' I liked them, and I always loved the 'a.s.syrian.' But--I thought you might like something bright and cheerful to-day, Mrs. Peyton, so I brought Austin Dobson. Are you fond of Dobson?"

"Never heard of him!" said the lady, carelessly. "Read whatever you like, child; your voice always soothes me. Will you come and be my companion, Margaret? Your uncle has Sophronia now; he cannot need you.

Come to me! You shall have a thousand, two thousand dollars a year, and all the jewels you want. I'll have these set for you, if you like."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'DID YOU BRING A BOOK TO READ TO ME, LITTLE GIRL?'"]

She seemed only half in earnest, and Margaret laughed. "You sent your last companion away, you know, Mrs. Peyton," she said. "I'm afraid I should not suit you, either."

"My dear, that woman ate apples! No one could endure that, you know.

Ate--champed apples in my ears, and threw the cores into my grate.

Positively, she smelt of apples all day long. I had to have the room fumigated when she left. A dreadful person! One of her front teeth was movable, too, and set me distracted every time she opened her mouth. Are you ever going to begin?"

Margaret read two or three of her favourite poems, but with little heart in her reading, for she felt that her listener was not listening. Now and then would come an impatient sigh, or a fretful movement of the jewelled hands; once a sapphire was tossed up in the air, and fell on the floor by Margaret's feet. Only when she began the lovely "Good Night, Babette!" did Mrs. Peyton's attention seem to fix. She listened quietly, and, at the end, drew a deep breath.

"You call that bright and cheerful, do you?" Mrs. Peyton murmured.

"Everything looks cheerful in the morning. Good night,--"I grow so old,"--how dare you read me such a thing as that, Margaret Montfort? It is an impertinence."

"Indeed," said Margaret, colouring, and now really wounded. "I do not understand you at all to-day, Mrs. Peyton. I don't seem to be able to please you, and it is time for me to go."