It did, indeed, seem a strange coincidence that while Mr. Moses Spriggins drew Miss Marguerite's Verne's attention to his legal proceedings that Phillip Lawson should be turning over certain facts in his memory in order to elucidate some important problems as regards his relation to this fair being.

Could he then have seen the respectful manner with which Marguerite greeted the son of toil, he would feel more deeply impressed with the beauty of her character, and could he have heard her modest eulogium upon himself, an emotional chord would have vibrated to the musical tones of her soft and well-modulated voice. But our young friend was not to be thus gratified. It is contrary to the laws which govern the order of the universe that an eternal fitness should adapt itself to our circ.u.mstances.

Ah, no, my young dreamer, much as we would wish it otherwise, we must sit patiently and see you suffer much mental agony in trying to discipline your mind for the trying ordeal through which you must irrevocably pa.s.s.

Nor did the sweet-faced Marguerite, as she chatted in her quiet happy way, for one moment dream that the brawny and muscular hand of Moses Spriggins should be yet held in friendly grasp, and that she would ever cherish this st.u.r.dy son of toil in grateful memory.

Standing there on that uneventful morn with the rays of sunshine playing hide and seek through her silken hair, could she have looked beyond the surrounding of the present, and cast her eye along the dim and shadowy perspective, what sorrow might have been averted; what heart-throes might have been quieted! But let us not be carried away by such thoughts. Let us not seek to penetrate beyond the airy nothings of every-day life.

Marguerite Verne went back into the presence of the other members of the family. She chatted, laughed and sang blithe as a bird carolling its earliest matin.

Marguerite's pure and transparent soul finds shelter in the daily acts of goodness emanating from her loving heart, and if she feels a momentary pang she struggles bravely and lives on. She could ill repress her feelings when the peerless Evelyn, radiant in convenient smiles and blushes, went to be congratulated on her engagement to Montague Arnold.

"You never did seem like a sister to me Madge, and you act less like one now. I did not come to tell you that I was going to die."

Evelyn's manner was anything but amiable. She could brook no opposition to her will, and she was piqued to the highest degree that Marguerite did not break forth with the wildest terms of extravagant congratulation. But it matters not. Marguerite is not a hypocrite. She pities from the bottom of her heart the woman who will wed an unprincipled man like Montague Arnold.

How her tender pitying nature went out to the first-born of the family but the girl knew well the stubborn haughty spirit and looked calmly on without reproach.

Mrs. Verne had accomplished much in her own eyes. Her daughter was to revel in the comforts and elegancies of life. And when once the grand event had taken place she would have further opportunity to turn her attention to Marguerite. "I must get rid of Evelyn first,"

was her comment as she bent over a piece of embroidery designed for a mantle drapery--bunches of delicate ferns and golden rod on garnet plush, and intended for the home of the future Mrs. Montague Arnold.

But there was one who took a different view of the matter. Mr.

Verne looked on in grave disquietude. It may be sacrilegious but we cannot refrain from intruding upon his inmost thoughts and with heartfelt sympathy grieve for the indulgent parent who sees his fair first-born sacrificed to the world and mammon. The man of far-seeing penetration knows too well the great mistake and with painful intensity contrasts the sweet girlish wife of his youth with the fashionable woman of the world who presides supreme over his household--he sighs deeply and plunges deeper into the ponderous folios before him.

Presently a smile illuminates the grave face. A graceful form is at his side, and as the maiden holds up a pretty bouquet arranged by her own fair hands, the fond father draws her towards him and tenderly kisses the white, smooth forehead earnestly hoping that his favorite child may have a happier prospect before her--that she may be happy with one she loves.

"A guardian angel o'er his life presiding Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing."

CHAPTER X.

HELEN RUSHTON AT THE "CELESTIAL."

A few weeks had rolled by and Helen Rushton once more entered "Sunnybank."

Marguerite receives her visitor with open arms.

"I am so glad to see you, Madge," exclaimed the quaint little maiden, as she threw aside the pretty wrap, worn carelessly around her shoulders.

"I ought to be angry with you, you naughty girl," returned Marguerite, playfully, shaking the former by way of punishment.

"Oh, please don't say a word, like a good old dear. I did intend to write, but you just know how we spend the time running around, and I had so many demands upon me."

"Well, this time, I shall 'take the will for the deed,' but remember the second offence will be dealt with according to law."

Madge emphasized this threat with a hearty embrace and turned her eyes in the direction of the door.

"Well, if that is not too good to keep," shouted Josie Jordan, rushing in pell-mell, and seizing the pair with a l.u.s.tiness peculiar only to a maiden of athletic pretensions.

"Oh, you nuisance," exclaimed Helen. "How did you know I was here?"

"If that is not ignoring our hostess I should like to know what is.

Indeed, Miss Helen, I came intent on weighty business matters, but Madge's allusion to the law drove it out of my head."

Josie shrugged her shoulders and gave way to fits of laughter, then exclaimed, "But you know, Helen, why Madge should be interested in legal matters."

"Josie Jordan, I believe you are the greatest pest I ever met, just to come in when I was going to entertain Madge with my visit."

Helen Rushton had adroitly commenced an attack upon the former to conceal her friend's embarra.s.sment. She saw that Marguerite liked not the badinage of the thoughtless Josie, and she was determined at her own expense to turn the conversation.

"Just as if I am not as much interested in hearing celestial gossip as our worthy hostess," exclaimed Josie, making one of her most stately bows and a.s.suming a very mock-serious air.

"We can both listen, you saucy puss," said Marguerite, drawing a pair of pretty ottomans close to the sofa on which Helen sat.

"Indeed I am not going to listen--I can't wait--I am going to ask questions, and then we will hear more in the prescribed time--as the teachers say.

"As you wish," said Helen, patting the ma.s.s of golden curls that were as antagonistic to all order as the fair head they adorned.

"Did you go often to the House, Helen? Now for my questions.

"Yes, I went when there was anything worth going to hear."

"And I suppose that was not often."

"Hard on the M.P.P.'s, Josie," said Marguerite, smiling.

"Not half hard enough!" said the girl, vehemently. "They go there and sit and have a good time at the expense of the Province, and show off a little with a pa.s.sage-at-arms now and then that suggests more of a gladiatorial arena than that of a body of august law-givers!"

"Oh, mercy! hear the girl!" cried Marguerite, raising her hands in tender appeal.

"I tell you it's the truth; I will ask Helen if it is not so," cried the speaker turning to the latter for answer.

"I must confess that to a certain extent Josie is not far astray. I have seen exhibitions of cross-firing not strictly in accordance with one's ideas of a gentleman. But I suppose sometimes they forget themselves."

"A gentlemen never forgets himself, Helen. Although you have high-toned notions of the Capital, and granting that you have been lionized right and left, it does not excuse you from exercising a sense of right and wrong."

Marguerite could not but admire the brave girl with such an earnest look upon her face. The laughing, romping hoyden was capable of sound sensible argument, her character was made up of opposites; and Helen Rushton, clever in many things, was almost baffled.

Marguerite soon poured oil on the troubled waters.

"You told me where you were going to stay Helen but I have forgotten," ventured the latter.

"I did not happen to find my friends in the Belgravian district, but what matters it?" returned Helen.

"Up town or down town, that is the burning question always uppermost in Fredericton," cried Josie.