to our hearts; but it has burst like many
another; and we must console ourselves with
being glad that Frederick is so happy, and
with being a great deal to each other. So
don't offend me by talking of being able to
spare me, papa, for I assure you you can't."

But the idea of a change took root and
germinated in Margaret's heart, although not in
the way in which her father proposed it at
first. She began to consider how desirable
something of the kind would be to her father,
whose spirits, always feeble, now became too
frequently depressed, and whose health,
though he never complained, had been
seriously affected by his wife's illness and
death. There were the regular hours of
reading with his pupils, but that all giving
and no receiving could no longer be called
companionship, as in the old days when Mr.
Thornton came to study under him.
Margaret was conscious of the want under which
he was suffering, unknown to himself; the
want of a man's intercourse with men. At
Helstone there had been perpetual occasion
for an interchange of visits with neighbouring
clergymen; and the poor labourers in the
fields, or leisurely tramping home at eve, or
tending their cattle in the forest, were always
at liberty to speak or be spoken to. But in
Milton every one was too busy for quiet
speech, or any ripened intercourse of thought;
what they said was about business, very
present and actual; and when the tension of
mind relating to their daily affairs was over,
they sunk into fallow rest until next morning.
The workman was not to be found after the
day's work was done; he had gone away to
some lecture, or some club, or some beer-shop,
according to his degree of character. Mr.
Hale thought of trying to deliver a course of
lectures at some of the institutions, but he
contemplated doing this so much as an effort
of duty, and with so little of the genial
impulse of love towards his work and its end,
that Margaret was sure that it would not be
well done until he could look upon it with
some kind of zest.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.

SO THE winter was getting on, and the days
were beginning to lengthen, without bringing
with them any of the brightness of hope
which usually accompanies the rays of a
February sun. Mrs.Thornton had of course
entirely ceased to come to the house. Mr.
Thornton came occasionally, but his visits
were addressed to her father, and were
confined to the study. Mr. Hale spoke of him
as always the same; indeed, the very rarity
of their intercourse seemed to make Mr. Hale
set only the higher value on it. And from
what Margaret could gather of what Mr.
Thornton had said, there was nothing in the
cessation of his visits which could arise from
any umbrage or vexation. His business
affairs had become complicated during the
strike, and required closer attention than he
had given to them last winter. Nay,
Margaret could even discover that he spoke from
time to time of her, and always, as far as she
could learn, in the same calm friendly way,
never avoiding and never seeking any
mention of her name.

She was not in spirits to raise her father's
tone of mind. The dreary peacefulness of the
present time had been preceded by so long a
period of anxiety and care—even intermixed
with storms—that her mind had lost its
elasticity. She tried to find herself
occupation in teaching the two younger Boucher
children, and worked hard at goodness; hard,
I say most truly, for her heart seemed dead
to the end of all her efforts; and though she
made them punctually and painfully, yet she
stood as far off as ever from any cheerfulness;
her life seemed still bleak and dreary. The
only thing she did well, was what she did out
of unconscious piety, the silent comforting
and consoling of her father. Not a mood of
his but what found a ready sympathiser in
Margaret; not a wish of his that she did not
strive to forecast, and to fulfil. They were
quiet wishes to be sure, and hardly named
without hesitation and apology. All the more
complete and beautiful was her meek spirit
of obedience. March brought the news of
Frederick's marriage. He and Dolores wrote;
she in Spanish-English, as was but natural,
and he with little turns and inversions of
words which proved how far the idioms of his
bride's country were infecting him.

On the receipt of Henry Lennox's letter,
announcing how little hope there was of his
ever clearing himself at a court-martial, in
the absence of the missing witnesses,
Frederick had written to Margaret a pretty
vehement letter, containing his renunciation
of England as his country; he wished he
could unnative himselt, and declared that he
would not take his pardon if it were offered
him, nor live in the country if he had
permission to do so. All of which made
Margaret cry sorely, so unnatural did it
seem to her at the first opening; but on
consideration, she saw rather in such expressions
the poignancy of the disappointment which
had thus crushed his hopes; and she felt that
there was nothing for it but patience. In
the next letter, Frederick spoke so joyfully of
the future that he had no thought for the
past; and Margaret found a use in herself
for the patience she had been craving for
him. She would have to be patient. But
the pretty, timid, girlish letters of Dolores
were beginning to have a charm for both
Margaret and her father. The young
Spaniard was so evidently anxious to make
a favourable impression upon her lover's
English relations, that her feminine care
peeped out at every erasure; and the letters
announcing the marriage, were accompanied
by a splendid black lace mantilla, chosen by
Dolores herself for her unseen sister-in-law,
whom Frederick had represented as a