“She is always making mischief,” he went on eagerly. “The Rector would be well enough but for her. He is a good fellow, really.”
“There, there,” said Mary, “and you think me a scold, too, I daresay. Well, you know I cannot bear to see these old churches—well, perhaps I was—” and then she broke off again, and was silent.
The brother and sister presently turned back to the Dower House; and Mary went on, and through the Hall straight into the Italian garden where Mistress Margaret was sitting alone at her embroidery.
“My sister has been called away by the housekeeper,” she explained, “but she will be back presently.”
Mary sat down and took up the little tawny book that lay by Lady Maxwell’s chair, and began to turn it over idly while she talked. The old lady by her seemed to invite confidences.
“I have been to see the church,” said Mary. “The Rector showed it to me. What a beautiful place it must have been.”
“Ah!” said Mistress Margaret “I only came to live here a few years ago; so I have never known or loved it like my sister or her husband. They can hardly bear to enter it now. You know that Sir Nicholas’ father and grandfather are buried in the Maxwell chapel; and it was his father who gave the furniture of the sanctuary, and the images of Our Lady and Saint Christopher that they burned on the green.”
“It is terrible,” said Mary, a little absently, as she turned the pages of the book.
Mistress Margaret looked up.
“Ah! you have one of my books there,” she said. “It is a little collection I made.”