on the garden, and communicated by
a staircase in the wall with his bedroom. The study was a pleasant room,
lined with books for the most part, but with some valuable pictures, and
a great table full of drawers, and several presses or secretaries,
filled with papers and family documents of every kind. Mr. John
Montfort, recluse though he was, was the head of a large and important
family connection. Few of his relatives ever saw him, but most of them
were in more or less constant correspondence with him, and he knew all
their secrets, though not one of them could boast of knowing his. He was
the friend and adviser, the kindly helper, of many a distant cousin who
had never met the kind, grave glance of his brown eyes. Peggy Montfort
used to say, in the days when it had pleased him to appear as John
Strong, the gardener, that it "smoothed her all out," just to look at
him; and many people experienced the same feeling on receiving one of
his letters. No one had it, however, so strongly as Margaret herself, or
so she thought; and it was with a sensation of delightful relief that
she answered his call this morning. Mr. Montfort turned round from the
great table at which he was sitting, and held out his hand
affectionately.

"Come here, my child," he said, "and let me look at you. Look me
straight in the eyes; yes, that will do. You are feeling well, Margaret?
You look well, I must say."

"Well? Of course, Uncle John! Am I ever anything else? I have never had
a day's illness since I came here."

"You do not feel the load of responsibility too much for your young
shoulders?" Mr. Montfort went on. "It--it is not too dull for you here,
alone month after month with an elderly man, and a hermit, and one who
has the reputation of a grim and unfriendly old fellow? What do you say,
Margaret?"

The quick tears sprang to Margaret's eyes. She looked up at her uncle,
and saw in his eyes the quizzical twinkle that always half puzzled and
wholly delighted her. "Oh, uncle!" she cried; "you really deceived me
this time! I might have known you were in fun,--but you were so grave!"

"Grave?" said Mr. Montfort. "Never more so, I assure you. I may not have
very serious doubts, in my own mind; nevertheless, I want your
assurance. Do you, Margaret Montfort, find life a burden under existing
circumstances, or do you find it--well, endurable for awhile yet?"

"I find life as happy as I can imagine it," said Margaret, simply; and
then, being a