and discomfited than she. Instead of a quiet,
middle-aged clergyman, a young lady came
forward with frank dignity,—a young lady of
a different type to most of those he was in
the habit of seeing. Her dress was very
plain: a close straw bonnet of the best
material and shape, trimmed with white ribbon;
a dark silk gown without any trimming or
flounce; a large Indian shawl which hung
about her in long heavy folds, and which she
wore as an empress wears her drapery. He
did not understand who she was, as he
caught the simple, straight, unabashed look
which showed that his being there was of no
concern to the beautiful countenance, and
called up no flush of surprise to the pale
ivory of the complexion. He had heard that
Mr. Hale had a daughter, but he had
imagined that she was a little girl.

"Mr. Thornton, I believe!" said Margaret,
after a half-instant's pause, during which his
unready words would not come. "Will you
sit down. My father brought me to the door,
not a minute ago, but unfortunately he was
not told that you were here, and has gone
away on some business. But he will come
back almost directly. I am sorry you have
had the trouble of calling twice."

Mr. Thornton was in habits of authority
himself, but she seemed to assume some kind
of rule over him at once. He had been
getting impatient at the loss of his time on a
market-day, the moment before she appeared,
yet now he calmly took a seat at her bidding.

"Do you know where it is that Mr. Hale
has gone to? Perhaps I might be able to
find him."

"He has gone to a Mr. Donkin's in Canute
Street. He is the landlord of the house my
father wishes to take in Crampton."

Mr. Thornton knew the house. He had
seen the advertisement, and been to look at
it, in compliance with a request of Mr. Bell's
that he would assist Mr. Hale to the best of
his power: and also instigated by his own
interest in the case of a clergyman who had
given up his living under circumstances such
as those of Mr. Hale. Mr. Thornton had
thought that the house in Crampton was
really just the thing; but now that he saw
Margaret with her superb ways of moving
and looking, he began to feel ashamed of
having imagined that it would do very well
for the Hales in spite of a certain vulgarity
in it which had struck him at the time of his
looking it over.

Margaret could not help her looks; but
the short curled upper lip, the round,
massive up-turned chin, the manner of
carrying her head, her movements, full
of a soft feminine defiance, always gave
strangers the impression of haughtiness. She
was tired now, and would rather have
remained silent, and taken the rest her father
had planned for her; but, of course, she owed
it to herself to be a gentlewoman, and to
speak courteously from time to time to this
stranger; not over-brushed, nor over-polished,
it must be confessed, after his rough encounter
with Milton streets and crowds. She wished
that he would go, as he had once spoken of
doing, instead of sitting there, answering
with curt sentences all the remarks she
made. She had taken off her shawl, and
hung it over the back of her chair. She sat
facing him and facing the light; her full
beauty met his eye; her round white flexile
throat rising out of the full, yet lithe figure;
her lips, moving so slightly as she spoke, not
breaking the cold serene look of her face with
any variation from the one lovely haughty
curve; her eyes, with their soft gloom, meeting
his with quiet maiden freedom. He
almost said to himself that he did not like
her before their conversation ended; he tried
so to compensate himself for the mortified
feeling, that while he looked upon her with
an admiration he could not repress, she
looked at him with proud indifference,
taking him, he thought, for what, in his
irritation, he told himself he was—a great
rough fellow, with not a grace or a
refinement about him. Her quiet coldness of
demeanour he interpreted into contemptuousness,
and resented it in his heart to the pitch
of almost inclining him to get up and go away,
and have nothing more to do with these
Hales, and their superciliousness.

Just as Margaret had exhausted her last
subject of conversation—and yet conversation
that could hardly be called which consisted of
so few and such short speeches—her father
came in, and with his pleasant gentlemanly
courteousness of apology, reinstated his
name and family in Mr. Thornton's good
opinion.

Mr. Hale and his visitor had a good deal
to say respecting their mutual friend, Mr.
Bell; and Margaret, glad that her part of
entertaining the visitor was over, went to
the window to try and make herself more
familiar with the strange aspect of the
street. She got so much absorbed in watching
what was going on outside that she
hardly heard her father when he spoke to
her, and he had to repeat what he said:

"Margaret! the landlord will persist in
admiring that hideous paper, and I am afraid
we must let it remain."

"Oh dear! I am sorry!" she replied, and
began to turn over in her mind the
possibility of hiding part of it at least, by some
of her sketches, but gave up the idea at last,
as likely only to make bad worse. Her
father, meanwhile, with his kindly country
hospitality was pressing Mr. Thornton to
stay to luncheon with them. It would have
been very inconvenient to him to do so, yet
he felt that he should have yielded, if
Margaret by word or look had seconded her
father's invitation; he was glad she did not,
and yet he was irritated at her for not doing
it. She gave him a low, grave bow when he
left, and he felt more awkward and self-