to clasp his hand.

"I did not know that you and Mr. Raleigh were acquainted," said Mrs.
McLean.

"Oh, Madam, Mr. Raleigh and I had the pleasure of being shipwrecked
together," was the reply; and except that Mrs. Laudersdale required
another napkin where her cup had spilled, all went on smoothly.

Mrs. Laudersdale took Marguerite entirely to herself for a while. She
seemed, at first, to be like some one suddenly possessed of a new sense,
and who did not know in the least what to do with it; but custom and
familiarity destroyed this sentiment. She did not appear to entertain a
doubt of her child's natural affection, but she had care to fortify it
by the exertion of every charm she possessed. From the presence of
dangerous rivals in the house, an element of determination blended with
her manner, and she moved with a certain conscious power, as if
wonderful energies were but half-latent with her, as if there were
kingdoms to conquer and crowns to win, and she the destined instrument
You would have selected her, at this time of her lavish devotion to
Marguerite, as the one woman of complete capability, of practical
effective force, and have declared that there was nothing beyond her
strength. The relation between herself and her child was certainly as
peculiar as anything else about them; the disparity of age seemed so
slight that they appeared like sisters, full of mutual trust, the
younger leaning on the elder for support in the most trivial affairs.
They walked through the woods together, learned again its glades and
coverts, searched its early treasure of blossoms; they went out on the
lake and spent long April afternoons together, floating about cove and
inlet of island-shores; they returned with innocent gayety to that house
which once the mother, in her moment of passion, had fancied to be a
possible heaven of delight, and which, since, she had found to be a very
indifferent limbo. For, after all, we derive as much happiness from
human beings as from Nature, and it was a tie of placid affection that
bound her to the McLeans, not of sympathetic union, and her husband was
careful never to oppress her with too much of his society. Whether this
woman, who had lived a life of such wordless emotion, who had never
bestowed a confidence, suddenly blossomed like a rose and took the
little new-comer into the gold-dust and fragrance of her heart, or
whether there was always between them the thin impalpable division that
estr