“Yes; he sent me here. And, of course, he’s been very kind, and done everything for me; but he’s quite a young man, not thirty, and he’s so stupid, and so stiff, and thinks so much about Oxford, and talks so like a book. And he’s so shy, and always seems to do everything, not because he likes it, but because he thinks he ought to. And, besides—”
But Margaret did not go further in her confessions, nor explain more lucidly why she had scant affection for Mait-land of St. Gatien’s.
“And had your poor father no other friends who could take care of you?” Janey asked.
“There was a gentleman who called now and then; I saw him twice. He had been an officer in father’s ship, I think, or had known him long ago at sea. He found us out somehow in Chelsea. There was no one else at all.”
“And you don’t know any of your father’s family?”
“No,” said Margaret, wearily. “Ob, I have forgotten to pack up my prayer-book.” And she took up a little worn volume in black morocco with silver clasps. “This was a book my father gave me,” she said. “It has a name on it—my grandfather’s, I suppose—‘Richard Johnson, Linkheaton, 1837.’” Then she put the book in a pocket of her travelling cloak.
“Your mother’s father it may have belonged to,” said Janey.
“I don’t know,” Margaret replied, looking out of the window.
“I hope you won’t stay away long, dear,” said Janey, affectionately.
“But you are going, too, you know,” Margaret answered, without much tact; and Janey, reminded of her private griefs, was about to break down, when the wheels of a carriage were heard laboring slowly up the snow-laden drive.