"A friend of mine?" said Margaret, in surprise. "Who can it be? I have but two or three friends in the world."
"A cynic would tell you you were exceptionally rich in friends, according to that calculation. How do you count them?"
"Yourself," said Margaret, with more frank kindness of tone than he had ever before recognised in her manner towards him.
"Après?"
"Well, Lady Davyntry."
"And Hayes Meredith? That is it, is it not? The letter is from him. You shall hear all about it, after dinner."
Margaret left him and went to her room. She felt rather vexed with herself. When she answered James Dugdale's question, she had not been thinking of Hayes Meredith.
[CHAPTER XI.]
FOOL'S PARADISE.
Shortly after the incidents narrated in the preceding chapter, Mr. Baldwin left Davyntry. His sister maintained to the last the strong constraint she had put upon herself. She had seen with a genuine disinterested pleasure, for which the world in general might fairly have been excused for not giving her credit, that her young favourite had captivated her only brother.