"You wouldn't be over and above pleased if she looked much into your closets, Frances; I know that!"
"Maybe I wouldn't, and maybe I would; but I'd like to have her know as there was no need of her looking. Don't tell me, Elizabeth! So long as she could walk on her feet, never a week but Mis' Cheriton would look in, and take a peep at every shelf. 'Just for the pleasure of seeing perfection, Frances,' she'd say, or something like that, her pretty way. But if there had been anything but perfection, I'd have heard from her pretty quick."
"I think you're hard to please, I do!" Elizabeth answered. "I think Miss Margaret is as sweet a young lady as walks the earth; so thoughtful, and afraid of giving trouble, and neat and tidy as a pin. I tell you, Mr. Montfort's well off, and so's you and me, Frances. Why, we might have had one of them other young ladies, and then where'd we have been?"
"I don't know!" said Frances, significantly. "Not here, that's one sure thing."
"Or Mr. Montfort might have married. Fine man as he is, it's a wonder he never has."
"H'm! he's no such fool! Not but what there's them would be glad enough—"
But here Margaret, with burning cheeks, fled back to the White Rooms. It could not be helped; she had to hear what they were saying about herself; she must not hear what they said about her uncle.
She sat down on the little stool that had always been her favourite seat, and leaned her cheek against the great white chair, that would always be empty now.
"I wish you were here, Aunt Faith!" she said, aloud. "I am very young, and very ignorant. I wish you were here to tell me what I should do."
At first the women's talk seemed cruel to her. They had been here so long, they knew the ways of the house so entirely, she had never dreamed of advising them, any more than of advising her uncle himself. Frances had been at Fernley twenty years, Elizabeth, twenty-five. What could she tell them? How could she possibly know about the things that had been their care and pride, year in and year out, since before she was born? It seemed very strange, very unkind, that they should expect her to step in, with her youth and ignorance, between them and their experience. So she thought, and thought, feeling hot, and sore, and angry. She had never had any care of housekeeping in her life. Old Katy, her nurse, who had taken her from her dying mother's arms, had always done all that; Margaret's part was to see that her own and her father's clothes were in perfect order, to keep the rooms dusted, and arrange the books when she was allowed to touch them, which was not often. As to table-cloths, she had never thought of them in her life; Katy saw to all that; and if she had attempted to suggest ordering dinner, Katy would have been apt to send her to bed, Margaret thought. Poor, dear old Katy! She was dead now, and Aunt Faith was dead, and there was no one to stand between Margaret and the cares that she knew nothing about. Of course, Uncle John must never know anything of it; he expected perfection, and had always had it; he did not care how it was brought about. Surely these women were unkind and unreasonable! What good could she possibly do by interfering? They would not endure it if she really did interfere.
The white linen cover of the chair was smooth and cool; Margaret pressed her cheek against it, and a sense of comfort stole over her insensibly. She began to turn the matter over, and try to look at the other side of it. There always was another side; her father had taught her that when she was a little child. Well, after all, had they really said anything unkind? Frances's words came back to her, "I'd like to have her know as there was no need of her looking."
After all, was not that perfectly natural? Did not every one like to have good work seen and recognised? Even Uncle John always called her to see when he had made a particularly neat graft, and expected her praise and wonderment, and was pleased with it. And why did she show him her buttonholes this morning, except that she knew they were good buttonholes, and wanted the kindly word that she was sure of getting? Was the trouble with her, after all? Had she failed to remember that Elizabeth and Frances were human beings, not machines, and that her uncle being what he was, she herself was the only person to give them a word of deserved praise or counsel?
"My dear," she said to herself, "I don't want to be hasty in my judgments, but it rather looks as if you had been a careless, selfish goose, doesn't it now?"
She went up to her own room—the garden seemed too much of an indulgence just now—and sat down quietly with her work. Sewing was always soothing to Margaret. She was not fond of it; she would have read twelve hours out of the twenty-four, if she had been allowed to choose her own way of life, and have walked or ridden four, and slept six, and would never have thought of any time being necessary for eating, till she felt hungry. But she had been taught to sew well and quickly, and she had always made her own underclothes, and felled all the seams, and a good many girls will know how much that means. She sat sewing and thinking, planning all kinds of reforms and experiments, when she heard Elizabeth stirring in the room next hers. It was the linen room, and Elizabeth was putting away clean clothes, Margaret knew by the clank of the drawer-handles. Now! this was the moment to begin. She laid down her work, and went into the linen room.
"May I see you put them away, Elizabeth?" she asked. "I always like to see your piles of towels—they are so even and smooth."
Elizabeth looked up, and her face brightened. "And welcome, Miss Margaret!" she said. "I'll be pleased enough. 'Tis dreadful lonesome, and Mis' Cheriton gone. Not that she could come up here, I don't mean; but I always knew she was there, and she was like a mother to me, and I could always go to her. Yes, miss, the towels do look nice, and I love to keep 'em so."
"They are beautiful!" said Margaret, with genuine enthusiasm, for the shelves and drawers were like those she had read about in "Soll und Haben." She had loved them in the book, but never thought of looking at them in reality. "Oh, what lovely damask this is, Elizabeth! It shines like silver! I never saw such damask as this."
"'Tis something rare, miss, I do be told," Elizabeth replied.
"Mr. Montfort brought them towels back from Germany, three years ago, because he thought they would please his aunt, and they did, dear lady. Hand spun and wove they are, she said; and there's only one place where they make this weave and this pattern. See, Miss Margaret! 'Tis roses, coming out of a little loaf of bread like; and there was a story about it, some saint, but I don't rightly remember what. There! I have tried to remember that story, ever since Mis' Cheriton went, but it seems I can't."
"Oh, oh, it must be Saint Elizabeth of Hungary!" cried Margaret, bending in delight over the smooth silvery stuff. "Why, how perfectly enchanting!"
"Yes, miss, that's it!" cried Elizabeth, beaming with pleasure. "Saint Elizabeth it was; and maybe you'll know the story, Miss Margaret. I never like to ask Mr. Montfort, of course, but I should love dearly to hear it."
Margaret asked nothing better. She told the lovely story as well as she knew how, and before she had finished, Elizabeth's eyes as well as her own were full of tears. One of Elizabeth's tears even fell on the towel, and she cried out in horror, and wiped it away as if it had been a poison-spot, and laid the sacred damask back in its place. Margaret felt the moment given to her.
"Elizabeth," she said, "I want to ask you something. I want to ask if you will help me a little. Will you try?"
Elizabeth, surprised and pleased, vowed she would do all she could for Miss Margaret, in any way in her power.
"You can do a great deal!" said Margaret. "I—I am very young, Elizabeth, and—and you and Frances have been here a long time, and of course you know all about the work of the house, and I know nothing at all. And yet—and yet, I ought to be helping, it seems to me, and ought to be taking my place, and my share in the work. Do you see what I mean, Elizabeth? You and Frances could help me, oh, so much, if you would; and perhaps some day I might be able to help you too—I don't know just how, yet, but it might come."
"Oh, miss, we will be so thankful!" cried Elizabeth. "Oh, miss, Frances and me, we'd been wishing and longing to have you speak up and take your place, if I may say so. We didn't like to put ourselves forward, and we've no orders from Mr. Montfort, except to do whatever you said; and so, when