ose I must.
Cranberry sauce! Thank you! I am really too exhausted to enjoy a morsel,
but I will make an effort. We _can_ do what we _try_ to do, I always
say. Thank you, dearest John. I dare say I shall be better to-morrow."

CHAPTER IV.

THE TRIALS OF MARGARET.

Margaret woke early the next morning, and lay wondering where she was.
Her eyes were used to opening on rose-flowered walls and mahogany
bed-posts. Here all was soft and white, no spot of colour anywhere. She
came to herself with a start, and yesterday with its happenings came
back to her. She sighed, and a little worried wrinkle came on her smooth
forehead. What a change, in a few short hours! Was all their peaceful,
dreamy life over, the life that suited both her and her uncle so
absolutely? They had been so happy! Was it over indeed? It seemed at
first as if she could not get up and face the cares of the day, under
the new conditions. Indolent by nature, Margaret dreaded change, and
above change unpleasantness; it seemed as if she might have plenty of
both. She rose and dressed in a despondent mood; but when her hair was
pinned up and her collar straight, she took herself to task. "I give you
three minutes!" she said, looking at herself in the glass. "If you can't
look cheerful by that time, you can go to bed again."

[Illustration: "AFTERWARDS SHE SALLIED OUT INTO THE GARDEN."]

The threat, or something else, carried the point, for it was an entirely
cheerful young woman who came into the library, with a rose for Uncle
John's buttonhole. Miss Montfort was already there, and responded with
sad sprightliness to Margaret's greeting. "Thank you, my dear! I was
just telling your uncle, it is a mere matter of form to ask if I have
slept. I seldom sleep, especially if I am up-stairs. The servants over
my head, it may be,--or if not that, I have the feeling of
insecurity,--stairs, you understand, in case of fire. Dear William had
my rooms fitted up on the ground floor. 'Sophronia,' he said, 'you must
sleep!' I suppose it is necessary, but I am so used to lying awake. Such
frightful noises in the walls, my dear John! Rats, I suppose? Has the
wainscoting been examined lately, in the room you have put me in? Not
that it matters in the least; I am the person in the world most easily
suited, I suppose. A cot, a corner, a crust, as William says, and I am
satisfied."

It took several crusts to satisfy Miss Sophronia at breakfast.
Afterwards she sallied out