if she
had attempted to suggest ordering dinner, Katy would have been apt to
send her to bed, Margaret thought. Poor, dear old Katy! She was dead
now, and Aunt Faith was dead, and there was no one to stand between
Margaret and the cares that she knew nothing about. Of course, Uncle
John must never know anything of it; he expected perfection, and had
always had it; he did not care how it was brought about. Surely these
women were unkind and unreasonable! What good could she possibly do by
interfering? They would not endure it if she really did interfere.

The white linen cover of the chair was smooth and cool; Margaret pressed
her cheek against it, and a sense of comfort stole over her insensibly.
She began to turn the matter over, and try to look at the other side of
it. There always was another side; her father had taught her that when
she was a little child. Well, after all, had they really said anything
unkind? Frances's words came back to her, "I'd like to have her know as
there was no need of her looking."

After all, was not that perfectly natural? Did not every one like to
have good work seen and recognised? Even Uncle John always called her to
see when he had made a particularly neat graft, and expected her praise
and wonderment, and was pleased with it. And why did she show him her
buttonholes this morning, except that she knew they were good
buttonholes, and wanted the kindly word that she was sure of getting?
Was the trouble with her, after all? Had she failed to remember that
Elizabeth and Frances were human beings, not machines, and that her
uncle being what he was, she herself was the only person to give them a
word of deserved praise or counsel?

"My dear," she said to herself, "I don't want to be hasty in my
judgments, but it rather looks as if you had been a careless, selfish
goose, doesn't it now?"

She went up to her own room,--the garden seemed too much of an
indulgence just now,--and sat down quietly with her work. Sewing was
always soothing to Margaret. She was not fond of it; she would have
read twelve hours out of the twenty-four, if she had been allowed to
choose her own way of life, and have walked or ridden four, and slept
six, and would never have thought of any time being necessary for
eating, till she felt hungry. But she had been taught to sew well and
quickly, and she had always made her own underclothes, and felled all
the seams, and a good many girls will know how much that means. S