"Yes, poor girl. It is a great shame. Her grandfather keeps her cooped up in that gloomy old place and never lets her see a soul. She has passed a lonely, unloved youth, for I am sure her grandfather has never shown her any affection, and I am equally sure that her dry stick of a governess did not, and, poor child, she has never been allowed to associate with any one else. She has never been allowed to have a friend or to go to a party or a dance in her life. And she must be nearly eighteen now. It really is a shame, for youth only comes once."
"What a queer life! What a queer life for a girl to lead!" said the little doctor in jerky tones. "And is she contented with it?"
"Yes, I think so; but, then, she has no idea what she is missing."
With that reply the two voices passed out of hearing, leaving Margaret standing motionless under the tree. Of course it was she of whom they were talking. Was she, then, so greatly to be pitied? The idea was such a novel one that she could not take it in all at once, but gradually the truth of what they had said dawned with overwhelming force upon her mind.
"A lonely, unloved youth." Yes, such a youth had certainly been hers. Of course her grandfather had never loved her. In the bewildered state of her mind she hardly knew whether she had always realised that fact, or whether she had taken his affection for her for granted. And he had allowed her no friends, no parties, no dances. Why had she thus been brought up aloof from every one? Certainly, as Mr. Summers had said in reply to Dr. Knowles' question as to whether she was content with her existence, she was content simply because she knew no better one. She had not realised before in what a very different fashion other girls were brought up. But now her eyes were open. That simple phrase, "She does not know, poor child, what she is missing," had told her more than many lengthy explanations could have done.
Looking back afterwards on those moments during which she had stood gazing with unseeing eyes after the departing figures of the two men, they seemed to her to make a dividing line between all her previous and her after life. She had thought that the departure of Miss Bidwell had been an epoch in it; now that sank into comparative insignificance, for after all her departure had left her, Margaret, unchanged.
But the same could not be said of this event. Hitherto she had blindly, unquestioningly accepted her grandfather's right to order every detail of her life, and if she had thought about the matter at all she had doubtless supposed that his authority over her would always be as absolute as it was now.
However, it was one thing to discover that her childhood had missed, and her girlhood was losing, many of the pleasures that should rightly belong to them, but to remedy this state of affairs was quite another. Although the idea that her grandfather had been unduly strict with her had been thus suddenly brought home to her, it did not in the least lesson the habitual awe in which she stood of him, and as she was obliged to continue to adhere to the rules he had laid down for her, she began to wonder whether she had not been happier when she had not dreamed of questioning his right to exact such unquestioning obedience from her.
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," she quoted to herself, and what was the good of knowing that her life was so dull if she dared not do anything to make it less so. Since Miss Bidwell's departure she had fallen into the habit of talking aloud to herself, for she found that during her many long, lonely hours the sound even of her own voice made some companionship for her, and her conversations with Eleanor Humphreys were now no longer carried on in the recesses of her mind but out loud.
It was a dangerous habit, as she was to discover ere long, especially as Eleanor had of late, since in fact the seeds of discontent had been sown in Margaret's mind, not stopped at describing her gaieties to her friend, but tried to persuade her to break bounds and to come and join in the revels.