"You make quite a picture loaded with them," he said. "Look here, I should like to give you some roses, too, if you will have them?" he said, almost humbly. "We get them in London, you see, before you do in the country; and I want you to take some back with you."

"I should like to take my mother some," she answered, quite unconscious, of course, of their value.

"Good! You shall take her a heap from us both--I should like to send her some, if I may. But they shall meet you at Waterloo in a box, then they'll be fresh at the last moment."

Margaret felt, as they drove on again, as if she had found a playfellow, a comrade, some one who made life a wholly different thing. She had never been on equal terms with any one young before--with any one at all who laughed and chattered and looked at the world from the same stand-point as she felt that she and Tom did, though till yesterday she had not set eyes on him. It was a new delight that the world had suddenly sprung upon her. This was what it was like to be a boy and girl together, to have a brother, to have friends, what it would be like if some day in the future she were married: people went about then laughing and talking and delighting in being together. Oh, that wonderful word together!

"We won't go to the Abbey," Tom said, "because you did that yesterday, and before we inspect the House of Commons--"

"Some day you will be there!"

"Some day I shall be there," he echoed; "but before I show you the identical seat in which it is my ambition to sit, we'll get rid of these flowers. Great College Street is here, just round the corner. I wonder if she's at home. Jolly little street, isn't it? with its low houses on one side and the old wall on the other."

"And the trees looking over--"

"Here we are."

He flew out and knocked at the door. It was opened by a gray-haired woman, middle-aged, and with a kindly face, overmuch wrinkled for her years. Miss Hunstan had gone to rehearsal, she said.

"Oh--what a bore!" Tom was crestfallen. Then a happy thought struck him.

"Look here, Mrs. Gilman, we have brought her some flowers. Will you let us come and stuff them into her pots?"

"To be sure," she answered. "I'll get you some water at once," and she made off, leaving the street door open.

"Come in," he cried to Margaret. "Mrs. Gilman knows me, and she'll let us arrange them." The hall of the little old-fashioned house was panelled like Mrs. Lakeman's, but it was very narrow and painted white, and there were no fripperies about. Miss Hunstan's sitting-room was on the ground floor; it was small, and the walls matched the panelling outside it. The two windows went up high and let in the light, and the bygone centuries from over the way. In front of them were muslin curtains, fresh and white, with frills to their edges. There were bra.s.s sconces in the wall with candles and blue silk shades, but the reading-lamp on the table suggested that they were seldom used. On one side of the fireplace was a writing-table covered with papers, and over it a bookshelf; here and there a photograph, above the mantelpiece an autotype of the Sistine Madonna in a dark brown frame, and beneath it, filled with white flowers, was a vase of cheap green pottery; there were other pots of the same ware about the room, but they were all empty.

"We will fill them," Tom said, triumphantly.

Margaret looked at their handiwork with delight. "I like doing this,"

she said. "But it seems such an odd thing to be here in a stranger's room among the things that help to make up a life--and the stranger absent."

He looked at her for a moment. "Somehow she isn't a stranger," he answered. "Lots of people are strangers, no matter how long you know 'em, but she isn't, even at the beginning, if she likes you. Let's put these daffodils into this thing. Shall we?"

"They look as if they were growing out of the green earth," she said; "pots should always be green, don't you think so? or else clear gla.s.s, like water."

"Good," he said, and went on cramming the flowers in. At last there were only the pale white roses left.

"We'll put them here," Margaret said, and set down the pot by the photograph of a thin, sweet-looking woman on the left of the writing-table.

"That's her mother," Tom said, half tenderly; Margaret pushed the roses nearer to it, and loved him for his tone. Then when all the flowers were placed about the little blue and white room, and the freshness of spring was its own, they laughed again like the light-hearted children they were, and went out to their cab.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Gilman," Tom cried, as he closed the doors. "Tell Miss Hunstan we did it--Miss Vincent and I, and that we left her our blessing."

X

The brown cart was waiting at the station, a successor to the heavy one of former days, lighter and better built, and the cob--a new cob--hurried along with it as though it were a c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l. Hannah was not there, only the boy who went out with the milk in the morning. He sat up behind and took care of the luggage, while Mr. Vincent drove with his daughter beside him, contented and happy. The visit to London had drawn them closer together. To Margaret it had been a strange looking back; for she had hardly realized till now that her father must have had a history before the day when he had entered the farm gates and seen her mother for the first time. She had heard Hannah speak of it--the coming of the stranger, as it had remained in Hannah's mind through all the years afterwards. Margaret thought, too, of her grandfather and uncle, the relations of whom she had known nothing when she started yesterday.

She was glad they had been people of 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 itself, the bell-heather was struggling into bloom; just so the possibilities of life had broken into her imagination, and if some struck her with wonder, there were others that filled her with joy. An unreasonable, undefinable happiness that could not be put into words rose to her heart when she thought of Tom Carringford. She could hear his laughter still, and his merry talk as they made a bower of Miss Hunstan's room; she wanted to see him again already, and something told her that he wanted to see her.

The farm-yard gates were wide open. It was good to see the corner of the Dutch garden again, and in the porch, just as Margaret had known she would be, her mother stood waiting. Mr. Vincent took his wife's hand without a word, and looked into her face with a little smile.

"We have come home," he said. She gave him her hand for a moment, then turned to Margaret, who saw with surprise that she was smarter than usual. She wore her gray cashmere and the brooch with the topaz in it, and one of her best hemst.i.tched handkerchiefs was pushed into the front of her dress. A smile came to her lips as she answered the question in Margaret's eyes.

"Hannah didn't go to the station," she said, "for Mr. Garratt came over this afternoon. Tea has been ready this hour and more, but we waited for you."

A fresh cloth was on the table in the living-room, there was a vase of flowers in the middle, the best china was put out, and fresh-cooked scones and other good things were visible. Near the fireplace stood Hannah, looking a little defiant and rather shamefaced. Margaret noticed that her hair was brushed back tighter than ever and shone more than usual. At her neck was a bow of muslin and lace, of which she 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 a navy-blue tie with white spots on it, and a gold watch-chain wandered over his waistcoat.

Margaret saw in a moment that he was altogether different from the men who were her father's friends--from Mr. Carringford, for instance, or Sir George Stringer, with whom she had felt natural and at home. There was something about this man that made her haughty and on the defensive even before she had spoken to him.

"Your train must have been late. Tea's been waiting this long time,"

Hannah said. "However, it's to be hoped you've enjoyed yourselves." Her manner was quite amiable, but a little confused, as was only to be expected.

"This is Mr. Garratt," Mrs. Vincent said. "You will like to meet him, father; he has always known James's people at Petersfield."

"How do you do, sir; pleased to make your acquaintance, I'm sure," Mr.

Garratt said. "I hope you've had a pleasant visit to London?"

"How do you do?" Mr. Vincent answered, wondering whether this lively young man could really be in love with the sedate Hannah.

"And Miss Vincent, I'm pleased to meet you," Mr. Garratt went on, in a genial tone. "Have often heard of you, and hope you've enjoyed yourself since you've been away."

"Yes, thank you," Margaret answered, distantly.

"I dare say you've come back ready for your tea." This was by way of a little joke. "There's nothing like a railway journey, with the country at the end of it, for starting an appet.i.te," to which she vouchsafed no reply, feeling instinctively that it would be wise to keep Mr. Garratt at a distance.

Then the business of tea was entered upon, reflectively, and almost in silence, as was the custom at Woodside Farm. The silence puzzled Mr.

Garratt a little, this being his first visit; then he wondered if it were a compliment to himself, and whether these quiet people were shy before him.

"Is there much doing in London?" he asked Mr. Vincent, thinking perhaps that he was expected to lead the conversation.

"I suppose so," Mr. Vincent answered, a little coldly.

"I always think myself that it does one good to go up. I dare say you find the same? Did you stay at one of the hotels in the Strand?"

"We stayed at the Langham."

"It's rather swagger there, you know." Mr. Garratt thought this would be a pleasing remark.

"It's very quiet," Mr. Vincent said, haughtily.

"Did you go anywhere, father?" Mrs. Vincent asked.

"Yes; we went to Westminster Abbey."

"Magnificent building, Westminster Abbey," Mr. Garratt put in. "What did you think of it, Miss Vincent?"