t is one thing; you would have to
speak to Aunt Katrina, make arrangements, and that would take time. Then
I think that Garda has probably talked more freely to me about that
youth than she has to you; it's a little odd that she should, but I
think she has."

"It's very possible."

"On that account it would come in more naturally, perhaps, if she should
hear it first from me."

Again Margaret assented.

"And then it won't make her think it's important, my stopping there as I
pass; your going would have another look. I'm a little curious to see
how she will take it," he added.

"That is your real reason, I think," said Margaret.

"She has just lost her mother," he went on, without taking up this
remark. "Perhaps the real sorrow may make her forget the fictitious one;
I am sure I hope so. I will go down, then. But in case I am mistaken, in
case she should continue to--fancy herself in earnest, shall I come back
and tell you?"

"I suppose so, she is in my charge. But if I should have to go down
there myself, Aunt Katrina would take it rather ill, I am afraid,--that
is just now."

"You are very good to Aunt Katrina, I want to tell you that I appreciate
it; I am afraid she has rather a way of treating you as an appendage to
herself, not as an independent personage."

"That is all I am--an appendage," said Margaret. She paused. "Feeling as
she does," she continued, "she yet allows me to stay with her. That has
been a great deal to me."

Winthrop's face changed a little; up to this time his expression had
been almost warmly kind. "Feeling as she does!" Yes, Aunt Katrina might
well feel as she did, with her favorite nephew, her almost son,
wandering about the world (this was one of the aunt's expressions, he
used it in his thoughts unconsciously), without a home, because he had
a wife so Pharisaic, so icily unforgiving.

"You make too much of it," he answered, coldly; "the obligation is by no
means all on one side." Then he finished what he had begun to say before
she made her remark. "I had occasion to remind my aunt, only the other
day, that if at any time you should wish to have a home of your own, she
ought not to object. She would miss you greatly, of course; I,
however--and I am glad to have this opportunity of saying it--should
consider such a wish very natural, and I should be happy to do
everything possible towards furthering it."

"I have no such wish; but perhaps you think--perhaps you prefer that I