“I like your understanding it,” said Margaret, smiling sadly. “I don’t know whether it is silly, but I don’t like to be pitied for the wrong thing. My being so helpless is what every one laments over; but, after all, that is made up to me by the petting and kindness I get from all of them; but it is the being mistress of the house, and having to settle for every one, without knowing whether I do right or wrong, that is my trouble.”
“I am not sure, however, that it is right to call it a trouble, though it is a trial.”
“I see what you mean,” said Margaret. “I ought to be thankful. I know it is an honour, and I am quite sure I should be grieved if they did not all come to me and consult me as they do. I had better not have complained, and yet I am glad I did, for I like you to understand my difficulties.”
“And, indeed, I wish to enter into them, and do or say anything in my power to help you. But I don’t know anything that can be of so much comfort as the knowledge that He who laid the burden on you, will help you to bear it.”
“Yes,” said Margaret, pausing; and then, with a sweet look, though a heavy sigh, she said, “It is very odd how things turn out! I always had a childish fancy that I would be useful and important, but I little thought how it would be! However, as long as Richard is in the house, I always feel secure about the others, and I shall soon be downstairs myself. Don’t you think dear papa in better spirits?”
“I thought so to-day,”—and here the doctor returned, talking of Abbotstoke Grange, where he had certainly been much pleased. “It was a lucky chance,” he said, “that they brought Norman in. It was exactly what I wanted to rouse and interest him, and he took it all in so well, that I am sure they were pleased with him. I thought he looked a very lanky specimen of too much leg and arm when I called him in, but he has such good manners, and is so ready and understanding, that they could not help liking him. It was fortunate I had him instead of Richard—Ritchie is a very good fellow, certainly, but he had rather look at a steam-engine, any day, than at Raphael himself.”
Norman had his turn by-and-by. He came up after tea, reporting that papa was fast asleep in his chair, and the others would go on about Cocksmoor till midnight, if they were let alone; and made up for his previous yielding to Ethel, by giving, with much animation, and some excitement, a glowing description of the Grange, so graphic, that Margaret said she could almost fancy she had been there.
“Oh, Margaret, I wonder if you ever will! I would give something for you to see the beautiful conservatory. It is a real bower for a maiden of romance, with its rich green fragrance in the midst of winter. It is like a picture in a dream. One could imagine it a fairy land, where no care, or grief, or weariness could come, all choice beauty and sweetness waiting on the creature within. I can hardly believe that it is a real place, and that I have seen it.”
“Though you have brought these pretty tokens that your fairy is as good as she is fair!” said Margaret, smiling.