"Very well, miss."
The colour rushed to Ellice's face, words seemed to fail her for a moment, then, with a stamp of her foot, the child turned and fled out of the kitchen and disappeared down the drive, and was lost in the adjacent woods.
A sigh broke from the cook.
"There you have it, miss. You'll never be able to manage her, I'm afraid; she's just too much for all the governesses what comes."
"Anyway I must try, mustn't I, Betsy?" answered Margaret, adding, "It's my duty. Poor little thing, she does need someone to help her," finished Margaret, as she turned back into the hall.
"Someone to help her!—umph. She's a bit different from the others. James, think she'll do?" asked his wife, amazement in her voice.
"I—don't—know—I give it a week," answered the man grimly. "Saturday is the test."
Miss Woodford went up to her room, and sat down by the open window with, it must be admitted, a little feeling of despair in her heart. She could see rocks ahead, and she had had no experience, and surely the task here was going to be a big one. A great homesickness came over her; she felt the lump rising in her throat and almost choking her. This was to be her home now, and already the one being in whom she had felt an interest, and from whom she had hoped to win affection, had rushed from her with hatred in her heart and a malignant expression of passionate dislike disfiguring her face.
Presently Margaret roused herself and commenced unpacking her box. Beyond her clothes she had brought one or two personal treasures: the bit of the old cedar-tree; a water-colour drawing of the Abbey House, which she promptly hung up upon the wall, where an unused nail remained driven in. Her ivory toilet ware, with her name "Margaret" traced in gold across the backs of the brushes and mirror, and a beautiful dressing-case of the same lovely ware, which contained a family heirloom in the shape of a ruby necklace, the stones of which flashed their fire in the sun's rays, as now she lifted the lid. She took it out for a moment; the gems streamed from her fingers, held together by tiny links of gold.
She had a memory of her mother with that very chain about her neck, and she, a child, begging for it, and the laughing voice saying, "Not now, darling, but it will be yours when I am gone." How lightly the words had been spoken, and how soon had the separation come! Much as she treasured the jewels, the stones felt cold in her hand to-day as she gathered them up and replaced them in the case.