It was always the same. No kind word fur any one, no messenger sent to bring the lonely girl into the presence of a visitor who might have been inclined to make her life a little brighter.
Yet Margaretta was not wholly friendless. She had, after a time, three persons on whose affection she could rely, and all within her reach at Northbrook.
First of these was Thorley, who had known her from her birth, and who, in spite of all her mistress could do to the contrary, had never missed an opportunity of showing her devoted love for the girl. When Margaretta was a baby, Thorley used to steal away to the nursery and satisfy the hunger of a loving woman's heart by spending her few spare moments with the child. She was full of devices for her amusement, having been herself "the eldest of nine and used to nursing," and was in consequence the little one's first favourite.
So when Margaretta came back to Northbrook after the interval between her father's death and her mother's second marriage, Thorley's was the only familiar face she saw there beside her grandmother's.
Lady Longridge's first act on finding herself sole mistress of the Hall had been to make "a clean sweep" of all the servants, Thorley excepted.
"Not one who ever received orders from Florence shall stay in my service," she said, and carried out her resolution.
This change rendered it easy for her to reduce her establishment. "Half the servants ought to be enough to wait on one old woman," she said next, and then she decided to spare her purse further by giving less wages for less trained domestics. No wonder that, inside and out, the appearance of Northbrook had changed for the worse since its old mistress resumed her absolute rule there.
"Things will last my time. Let those who follow renew. There are gewgaws enough that Florence put in and that are not worth house-room, only that as my landlord took them at a valuation, and I have nothing to fill their places if they were removed, they may as well stay where they are."
The gewgaws were all the dainty screens, needlework, elegant lamp-shades and artistic trifles with which Sir. Philip's wife had beautified the barrenness of the rooms. All the more substantial articles were old-fashioned, the last possessor having had no spare money to spend on refurnishing the Hall.
Margaretta's second and only young friend was a little village seamstress named Ellen Corry, by whose deft fingers the garments of the growing girl were remodelled let out and lengthened, as occasion required.