strangers--they who
should have been as closely united as God had made them! To Lewis they
made professions that disgusted him; but, at Cora's request, he still
paid Mr. Clavering the respect of calling occasionally. It was an
unhappy state of things indeed; but heartless, worldly people have no
ties, and easily sever the closest, should they bind inconveniently; so
it cost Laura and her sisters neither pang nor remorse to outrage a
brother's feelings. Margaret yearned towards Cora, and, as often as she
saw her, expressed the same unchanging affection, but dared not openly
avow her regret at her absence.

One day, as Cora sat in her room plying her needle, she heard some one
enter the back gate. In a moment Maggie was in her arms, weeping and
laughing by turns. She had stolen away, and came to spend the whole day.

"Darling Maggie!" said Cora, kissing her again and again, "how kind of
you to come! Lewis will be so happy, too!"

"Ah, Cora!" replied Margaret, untying her bonnet, "if you knew what a
time I had to get here! We were all invited out to dinner; I positively
refused to go--having laid my plans for you, sweetest! Laura was so
ill-humored, and the others so intent upon themselves, that they did not
remark my eagerness to remain. But they insisted on my going, until I
suggested that the carriage would not hold us all, large as it is, and
so they drove off to Rivertown in grand style, leaving me at length
alone. I danced with joy! I almost screamed. But I kept quiet enough
till T knew they were not going to return for some odd glove, a
handkerchief, or Fanny's eternal powder bag, and then started off."

"This shall be a _jour de fete_, then, my own Margaret; and I will put
up this work to show you my sweet little home. Oh, Maggie!" continued
Cora, clasping her hands, "were it not for the indifference of your
father and sisters to my poor Lewis, I would be the happiest woman on
the wide earth. He deserves so much affection, for he has given his own
so earnestly."

A few tears fell from her eyes, but she brushed them away and smiled
again. Margaret sighed, but was silent. This was a subject upon which
she never conversed, from her decided disapprobation of the course
adopted towards two beings so dearly loved. She remembered, with
bitterness and trembling, the thirty-sixth verse of the tenth chapter of
St. Matthew: "For a man's enemies shall be they of his own household,"
and pondered deeply over the means of r