walk on her feet, never a week but Mis' Cheriton would look
in, and take a peep at every shelf. 'Just for the pleasure of seeing
perfection, Frances,' she'd say, or something like that, her pretty way.
But if there had been anything _but_ perfection, I'd have heard from her
pretty quick."

"I think you're hard to please, I do!" Elizabeth answered. "I think Miss
Margaret is as sweet a young lady as walks the earth; so thoughtful, and
afraid of giving trouble, and neat and tidy as a pin. I tell you, Mr.
Montfort's well off, and so's you and me, Frances. Why, we might have
had one of them other young ladies, and then where'd we have been?"

"I don't know!" said Frances, significantly. "Not here, that's one sure
thing."

"Or Mr. Montfort might have married. Fine man as he is, it's a wonder he
never has."

"H'm! he's no such fool! Not but what there's them would be glad
enough--"

But here Margaret, with burning cheeks, fled back to the White Rooms. It
could not be helped; she had to hear what they were saying about
herself; she must not hear what they said about her uncle.

She sat down on the little stool that had always been her favourite
seat, and leaned her cheek against the great white chair, that would
always be empty now.

"I wish you were here, Aunt Faith!" she said, aloud. "I am very young,
and very ignorant. I wish you were here to tell me what I should do."

At first the women's talk seemed cruel to her. They had been here so
long, they knew the ways of the house so entirely, she had never dreamed
of advising them, any more than of advising her uncle himself. Frances
had been at Fernley twenty years, Elizabeth, twenty-five. What could she
tell them? How could she possibly know about the things that had been
their care and pride, year in and year out, since before she was born?
It seemed very strange, very unkind, that they should expect her to step
in, with her youth and ignorance, between them and their experience. So
she thought, and thought, feeling hot, and sore, and angry. She had
never had any care of housekeeping in her life. Old Katy, her nurse, who
had taken her from her dying mother's arms, had always done all that;
Margaret's part was to see that her own and her father's clothes were in
perfect order, to keep the rooms dusted, and arrange the books when she
was allowed to touch them, which was not often. As to table-cloths, she
had never thought of them in her life; Katy saw to all that; and