What a little paradise Clough Cottage was to Margaretta, after the bare, comfortless rooms to which she was accustomed at Northbrook! How delightful it was to be addressed in terms such as her mother used in old days, and to find that this charming, cultured woman, to whose care she was consigned, was ready to open her heart to sympathise with a girl so untaught, as she now felt herself to be in comparison.
Mrs. Moffat wanted a young creature to love, and to whom she might impart a share of the mental treasures to which she was daily adding. She made a study of Margaretta, as a mother studies the nature of a child whom, by God's help, she aspires to mould into a noble woman. She won the girl's heart—that was an easy matter. She won her confidence, and used the knowledge she gained of the girl's inner nature to give her wise advice and lead her in the right way. How it touched Mrs. Moffat to receive the girl's communications, to know that little secret about the two humble friends who called her "Meg," when no one was at hand to overhear! And how she rejoiced that, despite the difference in their social position, these two friends, Thorley and the little seamstress, were not unwisely chosen, but deserved the name!
"I should never have known you but for Nelly Corry; and oh, how happy you have made me!" said Margaretta, as she held Mrs. Moffat's hand in her own, and caressed it from time to time in her childish fashion. "I owe her more than words can tell."
"And I owe her a great deal also, Meg, my darling. You have cheered my loneliness and given me a new interest in life," replied Mrs. Moffat, adding a loving kiss.
It would be waste of words to enter more fully into details. Meg was happy beyond expression. She worked with all her heart—so hard, indeed, that Mrs. Moffat was obliged to restrain her eagerness and insist on proper time being given to outdoor exercise and rest. As to music, the girl simply revelled in it.
At the end of two years her wonderful voice was the talk of the neighbourhood. Even old Lady Longridge became sensible that excellent value had been given for the money she had expended, and she began to take a grim pleasure in being called "grandmother" by this graceful girl who, though older, was infinitely more manageable than the wild young creature who roamed the woods at pleasure, yet felt all the while like an imprisoned bird, when first consigned to her guardianship. Alas! There was no summer holiday or visit to the seaside for the girl, who longed to be like others in this respect.
Lady Longridge had many more callers after Margaretta was taken in hand by Mrs. Moffat. Many of the neighbours would have liked to show kindly attentions to the girl of whom her teacher spoke so warmly, but their advances met with little encouragement. "I am too old to go out with Margaretta, and she is too young to take care of herself. She gets as much change as is good for her at Clough Cottage, and she has work to do both there and at home."
Mrs. Moffat, however, contrived little pleasures for her young charge, whom she was learning to love like a daughter, and occasionally invited other girls to meet her, when she could obtain permission for her to spend a night at the Cottage. But to strangers Margaretta was shy at first, and she did not meet any of these young people often enough to strike up a schoolgirl friendship with one of them.
She had Mrs. Moffat, whose sympathetic nature fitted her to fill the places of teacher, mother, friend, and sister to Margaretta, who, in possessing her affection, felt abundantly contented—nay, rich beyond expression.
Her days were no longer a weary blank, with nothing to vary their monotony. She had work and loved it, and though still living in such a retired fashion, she felt with unspeakable satisfaction that she was daily becoming better fitted for the society into which, when she returned to her darling mother, she should certainly be introduced.