ies!"

He was about to pass them with a formal bow, but Margaret, with a sudden
inspiration, caught his arm. "No!" she cried, "I want you to hear what I
am going to say. You, too, misunderstand--sit down, Hugh, and listen!
Please!" she added, in the tone that seldom failed to win any heart.

Hugh hesitated, but finally sat down, looking very grim, and stared at
the box-tree in front of him. Margaret went on, hurriedly, moved for
once out of her gentle calm.

"This lady--I must speak plainly, though she is my friend--has lived a
selfish, empty, idle life. She was very beautiful and very rich, really
one of the great beauties and heiresses, and--and that was all. She was
brought up by a worldly aunt--her mother died when she was little--and
married to some one whom she cannot have cared for very much, I am
afraid; and she never had any children. Then came all this ill health.
Oh, Grace, I can't help it if it wasn't all real, she certainly has
suffered a great deal; and through it all she has been alone, loving no
one, and with no one to love her. She will not see any of her own
people, cousins--she has no one nearer; she says they are all mercenary.
I don't know, of course, but it is one of the terrible things about
having a great deal of money, that you think everybody wants it, whether
they do or not. Now, at last, before it was too late,--oh, I am so
thankful for that,--the change has come. She has waked up, and it is all
owing to you, Grace. Yes, it is! I have been fond of her, and she has
petted me, and been very good to me, and given me things, but I never
could open her eyes, try as I would. Now, you have done it, dear. You
not only saved her life actually--yes, you did, Grace; she told me all
about it; she never would have got out of that room alive but for
you--you not only saved her life, but you have given her some idea of
how to live. She wants to do something in return. It is the first time,
I do believe, that she has wanted _really_ to help some one else. When
she gave me prettinesses, it was because it amused her to do it, not
because I needed them, nor because she was thinking specially about me.

"Grace, if you refuse this; if you shut back the kindly impulse, the
desire to help some one, I tell you you will be doing a wrong thing. It
is nothing in the world but pride, selfish pride, that is speaking in
you. Tell me again--tell Hugh, what Mrs. Peyton said to you when she
went away."

"She said--" Gra