"Oh, Janetta, how charming! Tell me some more about him; I am so much interested." "Margaret, don't be silly! Wyvis Brand is a very disagreeable man--not a good man either, I believe--and I hope you will never know him." "On the contrary," said Margaret, with a new wilful light in her eyes, "I intend mamma to call." "Lady Caroline will be too wise." "Why should people not call upon the Brands? I hear the same story everywhere--'Oh, no, we do not intend to call.' Is there really anything wrong about them?" Janetta felt some embarrassment. Had not she put nearly the same question to her own father the night before? But she could not tell Margaret Adair what her father had said to her. "If there were--and I do not know that there is--you could hardly expect me to talk about it, Margaret," she said, with some dignity. Margaret's good breeding came to her aid at once. "I beg your pardon, dear Janetta. I was talking carelessly. I will say no more about the Brands. But I must remark that it was _you_ who piqued my curiosity. Otherwise there is nothing extraordinary in the fact of two young men settling down with their mother in a country house, is there?" "Nothing at all." "And I am not likely to see anything of them. But, Janetta," said Margaret, reverting to her own affairs, "you do not sympathize with me as I thought you would. Would not you think it wrong to marry where you did not love? Seriously, Janetta?" "Yes, seriously, I should," said Janetta, her face growing graver, and her eyes lighting up. "It is a profanation of marriage to take for your husband a man whom you don't love with your whole heart. Oh, yes, Margaret, you are quite, quite right in that--but I am sorry too, because Sir Philip seems so nice." "And, Janetta, dear, you will help me, will you not?" "Whenever I can, Margaret? But what can I do for you?" "You can help me in many ways, Janetta. You don't know how hard it is sometimes"--and Margaret's face resumed a wistful, troubled look. "Mamma is so kind; but she wants me sometimes to do things that I do not like, and she is so _surprised_ when I do not wish to do them." "You will make her understand in time," said Janetta, almost reverentially. Her ardent soul was thrilled with the conception of the true state of things as she imagined it; of Margaret's pure, sweet nature being dragged down to Lady Caroline's level of artificial worldliness. For, notwithstanding all Lady Caroline's gentleness of manner, Janetta was beginning to find her out. She began to see that this extreme softness and suavity covered a very persistent will, and that it was Lady Caroline who ruled the house and the family with an iron hand in a velvet glove. "I am afraid not," said Margaret, submissively. "She is so much more determined than I am. Neither papa nor I could ever do anything against her. And in most things I like her to manage for me. But not my marriage!" "No, indeed." "Will you stand by me, Janetta, dear?" "Always, Margaret."