"Why should you say that I think it foolish? At any rate, I'm glad to see you looking so nice and happy."
"I don't know about being happy," said Margaret,—"or nice either for the matter of that."
But there was a smile on her face as she spoke, and Sir John smiled also when he saw it.
"Doesn't she look well in that bonnet?" said Mrs Mackenzie, turning round to the side of the counter at which he was standing. "It was my choice, and I absolutely made her wear it. If you knew the trouble I had!"
"It is very pretty," said Sir John.
"Is it not? And are you not very much obliged to me? I'm sure you ought to be, for nobody before has ever taken the trouble of finding out what becomes her most. As for herself, she's much too well-behaved a young woman to think of such vanities."
"Not at present, certainly," said Margaret.
"And why not at present? She looks on those lawyers and their work as though there was something funereal about them. You ought to teach her better, Sir John."
"All that will be over in a day or two now," said he.
"And then she will shake off her dowdiness and her gloom together," said Mrs Mackenzie. "Do you know I fancy she has a liking for pretty things at heart as well as another woman."