“I ax your pardon very humble, Miss Nellie; but Miss Marget couldn’t tutor no one to no false. An’ on de contrairy wise she said to we den, my sister an’ me, she said: ‘Forrest and Hildreth, mind when you are questioned in regard to me tell the truf as jus’ you know it.’ Dat’s all, Miss Nellie. ’Deed it is, madam. Miss Marget is high beyant tutorin’ anybody to any false.”
“There! you are not requested to indorse Miss Helmstedt. And very likely she did not take you into her counsels. Now, tell me the name of the place where you stopped?”
“I doesn’t know it, Miss Nellie, madam.”
“Well, then, the name of the people?”
“Dey call de old gemman Marse John, an’ de ole lady Miss Mary. I didn’ hear no other name.”
“You are deceiving me!”
“No, ’fore my Heabenly Marster, madam.”
“You are!” And here followed an altercation not very creditable to the dignity of Mrs. Colonel Houston, and which was, besides, quite fruitless, as the servant could give her no further satisfaction.
All that forenoon Margaret sat in her room, occupying her hands with some needlework in which her heart took little interest. She dreaded the dinner hour, in which she should have to face the assembled family. She would gladly have remained fasting in her room, for, indeed, her appetite was gone, but she wished to do nothing that could be construed into an act of resentment. So, when the bell rang, she arose with a sigh, bathed her face, smoothed her black tresses, added a little lace collar and locket brooch to her black silk dress, and passed out to the dining-room.
The whole family were already seated at the table; but Colonel Houston, who never failed in courtesy to the orphan girl, arose, as usual, and handed her to her seat. Her eyes were cast down, her cheeks were deeply flushed. She wore, poor girl, what seemed a look of conscious guilt, but it was the consciousness, not of guilt, but of being thought guilty. She could scarcely lift her heavy lids to meet and return the cold nods of recognition with which old Colonel and Mrs. Compton acknowledged her presence. The fervid devotion that had nerved her heart to meet Mrs. Houston’s single attack was chilled before this table full of cold faces and averted eyes. She could not partake of the meal; she could scarcely sustain herself through the sitting; and at the end she escaped from the table as from a scene of torture.