CHAPTER III.
Nothing could exceed Grace's disappointment when she found that, though Margaret rallied, got up, moved about, went out, and in all ways seemed to be her old self as far as bodily health went, she remained grave, quiet, and apparently indifferent to the various plans and arrangements proposed by her sister.
Grace began to know what we most of us live to find out, that something we have longed for—perhaps unduly—is given to us in a manner that makes us often regret the time and thoughts we have wasted upon it.
From the time she had been old enough to wish for anything, she had wished to be in or near London to see and be seen. First, she had been very ill herself, and now, here was Margaret, a widow and childless, and her dreams must equally vanish. At the beginning she had been filled with remorse, then she got a little weary of trying to sympathise, knowing that it was only trying, now she got very impatient.
Margaret had heaps of money, why could she not drive a little, or do something more than pace that tiresome little garden, read dull books, and go to a little grave?
Her joy may be conceived when one day Margaret was asked if she would see Lady Lyons. It was, at all events, some one who was neither a doctor or a nurse.
Lady Lyons, unaccustomed to more than a general friendliness on the part of her friends, from being a little deaf and not a little tiresome, was immensely flattered by the excuses Grace made for Margaret, and her evident pleasure at her visit; her one unflattering reflection being that she trusted this open satisfaction had nothing to do with her son and any advances he might have made in this direction.
Margaret had been her desire previously, when her inheritance was only problematical. Imagine what her wishes were now when every one knew that Margaret was a very rich widow.
She endeavoured to meet Grace with a friendliness that committed her to nothing, and her talk was of Margaret, and ever Margaret. Was she getting over the sad, she might say the mysterious, death of the child?