CHAPTER XIV.
NEWS ABOUT THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS.
Next morning Margaret Fanshawe was unusually silent at breakfast, except to her new friends the squirrels, whose cage she placed on a little table close by, and who had already begun to attach themselves to her. To them she talked, as she gave them their nuts, a great deal of that silvery nonsense which is pleasant to hear as any other pleasant sound in nature. But good old Miss Sheckleton thought her out of spirits.
"She's vexing herself about my conjectures," thought the old lady. "I'm sorry I said a word about it. I believe I was a fool, but she's a greater one. She's young, however, and has that excuse."
"How old are you, Margaret?" said she abruptly, after a long silence.
"Twenty-two, my last birth-day," answered the young lady, and looked, as if expecting a reason for the question.
"Yes; so I thought," said Miss Sheckleton. "The twenty-third of June—a midsummer birth-day—your poor mamma used to say—the glow and flowers of summer—a brilliant augury."
"Brilliantly accomplished," added the girl; "don't you think so, Frisk, and you, little Comet? Are you not tired of Malory already, my friends? My cage is bigger, but so am I, don't you see; you'd be happier climbing and hopping among the boughs. What am I to you, compared with liberty? I did not ask for you, little fools, did I? You came to me; and I will open the door of your cage some day, and give you back to the unknown—to chance—from which you came."
"You're sad to-day, my child," said Miss Sheckleton, laying her hand gently on her shoulder. "Are you vexed at what I said to you last night?"