“How you love your home and your parents!” said Louis, looking at her very gently. “I have so often observed it. Is it a provincial trait? I never saw a stronger feeling than the one you have for your household gods.”
“Yes, I do love them,” Margaret said; “and I can give no stronger proof of it than that Cousin Eugenia’s invitation does not tempt me to remain longer away from them.”
“And do they love you very much—or not?” he asked, looking into her face and smiling brightly.
“Oh yes,” she answered, smiling too; “as if I were perfection.”
“I almost think you are,” he replied. “I said to myself, from the first, ‘She is well-named Margaret, for she’s just a pearl.’”
Simply and quietly as he said it, there was something in his tone that thrilled her with a sudden emotion. She dared not raise her eyes to his, and so she turned away her flushed face as she answered, with an effort to speak as usual:
“I am named for my mother. Papa calls me Daisy, to distinguish us.”
“I think that suits you almost as well,” he said. “Your feelings are so fresh—not a whiff of their perfume brushed away yet. What a thing it would be for one of the careworn, weary worldlings one meets every day, to have your heart in her bosom for just one hour! And oh, what a revelation of falseness and hollowness and envy it would be to you to see into a heart like that! God protect you from it, Margaret! I am almost glad that you are going back to that quiet old country-place. It gives me a pang merely to think of the possibility of your being contaminated by the world. I could not bear to face the thought that the pearl might lose its pureness and the daisy wither. I have tried that no one shall suspect the fact, but you don’t know how I have watched over you. It was presumptuous of me, perhaps, but now that you know it, do you forgive me?”
Poor Margaret! She made a brave struggle for self-mastery, but it was only half successful. Apart from his words, there was something in his looks and tones that made what he had said a revelation to her. There could be but one meaning in those fervent, tender eyes, and the sound of the caressing voice.
“You once refused to shake hands with me,” Louis went on, presently. “Do you remember? I was in disgrace then, but I can’t help hoping I’m restored. Will you give me your hand now, in token of full pardon for the past?”