"Then you confess, Rosamund, that the old lady does tire you sometimes?"
"Oh no, I did not mean that—it's very different—I am used to all her ways, and I can humor her, and please her, and I ought to do it, for she is the only friend I ever had in the world."
The new friends did not conclude their walk till it was late, and Rosamund began to be apprehensive about the old lady, who had been all this time alone.
On their return to the cottage, they found that Margaret had been somewhat impatient—old ladies, good old ladies, will be so at times—age is timorous and suspicious of danger, where no danger is.
Besides, it was Margaret's bedtime, for she kept very good hours—indeed, in the distribution of her meals, and sundry other particulars, she resembled the livers in the antique world, more than might well beseem a creature of this.
So the new friends parted for that night. Elinor having made Margaret promise to give Rosamund leave to come and see her the next day.
CHAPTER VII.
Miss Clare, we may be sure, made her brother very happy, when she told him of the engagement she had made for the morrow, and how delighted she had been with his handsome friend.
Allan, I believe, got little sleep that night. I know not, whether joy be not a more troublesome bedfellow than grief—hope keeps a body very wakeful, I know.