his inexplicable depression when every
one in the household was rejoicing in her recovery. By and by this
depression wounded her, but she was too spirited to show the hurt.
She always brought a book with her now, in her visits to the studio;
it was less awkward to read than to sit silent and unspoken to over a
piece of needle-work.

"How very odd you are!" said Margaret, one afternoon, closing the
volume which she had held mutely for several minutes, waiting for
Richard to grasp the fact that she was reading aloud.

"I odd!" protested Richard, breaking with a jerk from one of his
long reveries. "In what way?"

"As if I could explain--when you put the quotation suddenly, like
that."

"I didn't intend to be abrupt. I was curious to know. And then the
charge itself was a trifle unexpected, if you will look at it. But
never mind," he added with a smile; "think it over, and tell me
to-morrow."

"No, I will tell you now, since you are willing to wait."

"I wasn't really willing to wait, but I knew if I didn't pretend
to be I should never get it out of you."

"Very well, then; your duplicity is successful. Richard, I was
puzzled where to begin with your oddities."

"Begin at the beginning."

"No, I will take the nearest. When a young lady is affable enough
to read aloud to you, the least you can do is to listen to her. That
is a deference you owe to the author, when it happens to be
Hawthorne, to say nothing of the young lady."

"But I _have_ been listening, Margaret. Every word!"

"Where did I leave off?"

"It was where--where the"--and Richard knitted his brows in the
vain effort to remember--"where the young daguerreotypist,
what's-his-name, took up his residence in the House of the Seven
Gables."

"No, sir! You stand convicted. It was ten pages further on. The
last words were,"--and Margaret read from the book,--

"'Good-night, cousin,' said Phoebe, strangely affected by
Hepsibah's manner. 'If you being to love me, I am glad.'"

"There, sir! what do you say to that?"

Richard did not say anything, but he gave a guilty start, and shot
a rapid glance at Margaret coolly enjoying her triumph.

"In the next place," she continued soberly, after a pause, "I
think it very odd in you not to reply to me,--oh, not now, for of
course you are without a word of justification; but at other times.
Frequently, when I speak to you, you look at me so," making a vacant
little face, "and then suddenly disappear,--I don