don't think it's possible----"

"No, I don't," Roger interrupted shortly. "Both she and the father
have told Margarita that she resembled her mother, and that her mother
was very good and very beautiful, but that she was not named after
her. She died when the child was born, and Hester was with them then.
Besides, her father used to correct her for using expressions of
Hester's and forbade her to hold her knife and fork as Hester did, and
things of that sort. She never ate with them, either. Margarita says
that Hester loved her father but was always afraid of him."

Caliban had the table cleared now, and Tip and I stared into our
reflections in the beautiful, shining mahogany where our plates had
been. I suppose the same thing was in both our minds. What a strange
marriage for a Bradley! What an incongruous effect, in steady old
Roger's life! When one considered all the Jacksons and Searses and
Cabots he might have married--there was one particular red-cheeked,
big-waisted Cabot girl that old Madam Bradley had long and openly
favoured--one could but gasp at the present situation. A surnameless
Miranda, whose only possessions were a chest of money, a few pieces of
old mahogany and a brindled hound!

"I haven't seen the young lady yet, you know, Roger," Tip reminded him
gently at last, and Roger, coming out of his abstraction with a quick
smile, stepped to the foot of the stairs and called, "Margarita!
Margarita! _Viens, cherie!_"

She came, hesitating from stair to stair as a child does, and I caught
my breath when I saw her--as I have always done whenever she appeared
in a new and different dress. For she had taken off the faded jersey
and put on a longer, more womanly frock of some sort of clear blue
print. It was faded, too, and much washed, evidently, but its dull,
soft tone and simple, scant lines only threw out the more strongly her
rich colouring and strong, supple figure. The body of it crossed on
itself simply in front, like an old-time kerchief, leaving her throat
bare to the little hollow at the base of it; around her waist was a
belt of square silver plates heavily chased, linked together with
delicate silver links. Her long braids were bound around her beautiful
round head, and this fashion of hair-dressing, with its classic
parting, brought out the purity of her features and the coin-like
regularity of them. I saw at once that she was older than I had
thought her on the beach: I had not given her twent