"I cannot tell you. Things altogether are growing more than I can bear."
"Margaret has been with you some time; has she not interfered, or tried to put things upon a right footing?"
Anne shook her head. "She espouses the dowager's side; upholds the two children in their petty tyranny. No one in the house takes my part, or my children's."
"That is just like Margaret. Do you remember how you and I used to dread her domineering spirit when we were girls? It's time I came, I think, to set things right."
"Laura, neither you nor any one else can set things right. They have been wrong too long. The worst is, I cannot see what the evil is, as regards Val. If I ask him he repels me, or laughs at me, and tells me I am fanciful. That he has some secret trouble I have long known: his days are unhappy, his nights restless; often when he thinks me asleep I am listening to his sighs. I am glad you have come home; I have wanted a true friend to confide these troubles to, and I could only speak of them to one of the family."
"It sounds like a romance," cried Laura. "Some secret grief! What can it be?"
They were interrupted by a commotion. Maude had been threading a splendid ring all the colours of the rainbow, and now exhibited it for the benefit of admiring beholders.
"Papa—Aunt Margaret—look at my ring."
Lord Hartledon nodded pleasantly at the child from his distant seat; Lady Margaret appeared not to have heard; and Maude caught up a soft ball and threw it at her aunt.
Unfortunately, it took a wrong direction, and struck the nodding dowager on the nose. She rose up in a fury and some commotion ensued.