When, after New Year, Franky went away, Mrs. Houston accompanied him to Belleview, whence he took the packet. And after parting with him, on her return through the village, she chanced to hear, for the first time, the affair of the horsewhipping, for which her Franky had been fined. Upon inquiry, she further learned the occasion of that chastisement. And her indignation against Margaret, as the cause, knew no bounds.
Happily, it was a long, cold ride back to the Bluff, and the sedative effect of time and frost had somewhat lowered the temperature of little Mrs. Houston’s blood before she reached home.
Nevertheless, she went straight to Margaret’s sanctum, and laying off her bonnet there, reproached her bitterly.
Margaret bore this injustice with “a great patience.” That had, however, but little power to disarm the lady, whose resentment continued for weeks.
Drearily passed the time to the hapless girl—the long desolate months brightened by the rare days when she would receive a visit from one of her two friends, Grace or Clare, or else get letters from her father or Ralph Houston.
Toward the spring, the news from camp held out the prospect of Mr. Houston’s possible return home. And to Ralph’s arrival poor Margaret looked forward with more of dread than hope.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DAUGHTER’S FIDELITY.
“Still through each change of fortune strange,
Racked nerve and brain all burning,
Her loving faith to given trust