my dear! I suffer--no living creature knows what I
suffer with my nerves. I--shall be better soon. Don't mind anything I
said; I must suffer, but it shall always be in silence, I always
maintain that. No one shall know; I never speak of it; I am the grave,
for silence. Do not--do not tell your uncle, Margaret, how you have seen
me suffer. Do not betray my momentary weakness!"

"Certainly not!" said Margaret, heartily. "I will not say a word, Cousin
Sophronia, of course!"

"He would wish to know!" said Miss Sophronia, smothering a sob into a
sigh. "John Montfort would be furious if he thought I was ill-treated,
and we were concealing it from him. He is a lion when once roused. Ah! I
should be sorry for that woman. But forgiveness is a duty, my dear, and
I forgive. See! I am myself again. Quite--" with a hysterical
giggle--"quite myself! I--I will take the vinaigrette to my room with
me, I think, my dear. Thank you! Dear Margaret! cherub child! how you
have comforted me!" She went, and Margaret heard her sniffing along the
entry; heard, and told herself she had no business to notice such
things; and went back rather ruefully to her buttonholes.

CHAPTER V.

A NEW TYPE.

"My child, I thought you were never coming again!" said Mrs. Peyton. "Do
you know that it is a week since I have seen you? I have been
destroyed,--positively destroyed, with solitude."

"I am so sorry," said Margaret. "I could not come before; truly I could
not, Mrs. Peyton. And how have you been?"

Mrs. Peyton leaned back on her pillows, with a little laugh. "Who cares
how I have been?" she said, lightly. "What does it matter how I have
been? Tell me some news, Margaret. I must have news. You are alive, you
move, and have your being; tell me something that will make me feel
alive, too."

Margaret looked at the lady, and thought she looked very much alive. She
was a vision of rose colour, from the silk jacket fluttering with
ribbons, to the pink satin that shimmered through the lace bed-spread.
The rosy colour almost tinted her cheeks, which were generally the hue
of warm ivory. Her hair, like crisped threads of gold, was brought down
low on her forehead, hiding any lines that might have been seen there;
it was crowned by a bit of cobweb lace, that seemed too slight to
support the pink ribbon that held it together. The lady's hands were
small, and exquisitely formed, and she wore several rings of great
value; her eyes were blue and limpi