Jessie's gentle, yielding nature found great enjoyment in Margaret's boldness and self-reliance, and Margaret, who began by protecting and supporting the other's timidity and shyness, ended by heartily admiring and loving her sweet and unselfish room-mate. They became "inseparables," in school-girl phrase, and when school-days were over, and Mr. Lester thought that the best completion to his daughter's education would be a little travelling, Jessie's mother consented to her accompanying her dear friend. For two years they visited beautiful places together, and felt their friendship drawn more closely, as their sympathies became enlarged.
But this happy experience came to a sudden and sorrowful end. Mr. Lester had a dreadful fall while they were coming down a mountain, and, after lingering a few weeks in extreme suffering, died, leaving the two girls quite alone in a foreign land. They had a sad journey home; he had been the life and soul of their expedition, and, having travelled a good deal before, had been able to be the pleasantest kind of guide for them. It had been hard to prevail on Margaret to leave the Swiss town where he lay buried in the little graveyard; but Jessie's love prevailed, and they came safely back together to Mrs. Edgar's hospitable house. Once there, the kind friends would not let Margaret think of leaving them, and she had grown to consider the pleasant house almost as her own home.
It was long before she recovered her high spirits, but at twenty-three she was induced to go into society with Jessie, who had waited for her. She was, from every point of view, a desirable match—young, rich, and fine-looking; gay and good-humored. Pleased with herself and her surroundings, she thoroughly enjoyed her first season, and was unmistakably a belle. The next year, however, was a disappointment; there was a sameness in her life and amusements that became irritating to her. Jessie was engaged to be married, and Margaret found herself jealous of her friend's divided confidence. But, though she said to Jessie that she would like to follow her example, "to be able to sympathize with lovers' rhapsodies," like the princess in the fairy-tale, she found fault with all her admirers; criticised them, nicknamed them, and discouraged their attentions as soon as these became exclusive. A very gay summer at a fashionable watering-place followed this wearisome winter, and Margaret entered upon her third season disposed for any thing but enjoyment. No one who saw her in society would have guessed her real character. High-spirited, gay, liking to astonish and slightly shock her friends by her behavior, a little of what is termed "a trainer," there lay underneath this careless exterior a depth of real sentiment that only one or two people whom she truly loved were aware of. To be loved for herself, and to love, were her aspirations.
First, she was perfectly aware of her own attractions, and believed she could have almost any man of her acquaintance, if she should choose to make herself agreeable to him; but she could not believe in any one's disinterested attachment to her.
"They all know I am rich," she would say to Jessie; "they would not take me and poverty. Now, I would be glad, if I were poor, to marry a poor man; then I could believe in his love, and we could have some trials to bear together."
Secondly, she earnestly wished to love; but this, with her, meant a great deal. She wanted to look up to some one, to honor and believe in him; she thought of this much more than of the sentiment; for she knew she should find that with the rest. She was tired of taking the lead, and of having her own way. How gladly would she submit herself to a noble guide! She imagined herself almost as a queen stepping down from her throne, resigning sceptre and authority, and saying, with Miss Procter,
"Love trusts; and for ever he gives, and gives all."
"But these young men," she said to Jessie, "are so intensely matter-of-fact! They would think my brain softening, if they knew what I wanted and expected to find." At another time she said, "If I could only find something a little different! I think I will go to Australia, marry a squatter, and see all the queer animals. My money would be worth while out there."
It has been said that Margaret had a maiden aunt living at Shellbeach, her mother's only sister. This lady she had seen but once since her return from abroad, when Miss Spelman came to New York on purpose to take her niece home with her. Margaret, however, was not willing to leave the Edgars, and so her aunt returned to Shellbeach, a little offended by her niece's preferring strangers to her own flesh and blood, but, on the whole, perhaps relieved that her quiet home was not to be invaded by a person of so startling a character as she conceived Margaret to be. A visit had been agreed upon between them; but this had been declined and deferred so many times that the old lady, again offended, had given up proposing it. If it had not been for Margaret's curiosity about Jessie's friend, Doctor James, she certainly would not have remembered her duty to her mother's only sister; while it is equally true that, if it had not been for that convenient relative, she could not for a moment have entertained the idea of taking the lion (that is, the doctor) by storm in his den. For of any likelihood of being captivated herself in this adventure, it must be acknowledged, she had no thought. Her curiosity, her strongest weak point, was thoroughly excited about this doctor. That a man with a fine education, a profession, and enough money to live respectably, (all which information she had obtained from her friend,) should isolate himself in a stupid little sea-side town, because he liked to do so and enjoyed it, was to her a mystery which demanded to be cleared up at once. How she should like to astonish this hermit! How she would dress! How she would shock his ideas of propriety, if he had any! He would be surprised and overpowered, of course, and then—well, then she would beat a graceful retreat, and come back to Jessie's wedding in the best of spirits.
"I shall take Cécile and the Marchioness and Jimmy, and you will see that we shall have an exciting time. I shall make myself so delightful to dear Aunt Selina that she will not hear of my staying less than six months; and I shall study housekeeping, economy, and medicine, and experiment on Cécile when she is sick."