"I think Margaret is more unhappy than any one," said Dora. "She was crying so bitterly when I went to her room just now; and she had fastened her door, and would not let me in at first."
"She will never forgive me for having spoken to Mr Cunningham," said
Amy.
"Yes," replied Colonel Herbert; "she will forgive everything when she can forgive herself."
"Now Lucy is gone," said Dora, "she is left quite alone; and she thinks every one in the house is complaining of her, and that she is the cause of all mamma's misery; and she does not dare go out of her room for fear of meeting her."
"I wish she would let me go to her," said Amy; "I am sure she must think I have been very unkind. But indeed I did not mean to make her so wretched; I only thought of Miss Morton."
"She cares more about poor Rose now than anything else," replied Dora. "She says it will make her miserable for life, if she does not get better. And I know I should feel just the same. It would be so very dreadful to think of having caused such an accident."
"But," said Colonel Herbert, "it certainly seems to me that Margaret's deceit in Miss Morton's case was far worse than her having left Rose."
"Only the consequences may be so much worse," said Dora.
"The consequences of our actions are not in our own power, my dear Dora," answered her uncle. "If we look to them, we may just as well say that Miss Morton ought to be miserable, or the poor man who drove the cows into the field, they all had a share in the accident."
"Certainly," said Dora, "when Margaret and I were talking together just now, we traced it all back to Julia Stanley and Mary Warner. It was they who made Lucy so angry. And if it had not been for that, Margaret says she never should have asked her to go out; and then Emily Morton would not have left poor little Rose with them, and the accident would not have happened. How unhappy they would be if they knew all that had occurred from their laughing at Lucy and saying foolish things."