“I wish I had Alan’s New York address,” she said to herself; “I’d write and tell him I would go to Baltimore, and so prevent his coming here. What _would_ papa and mamma think if they knew I was staying at a house where I could not ask my cousin to call upon me, because I had no assurance that my visitors would not be treated rudely? They would not believe it. They simply could not understand it. My dear old father! He would take my letter to the light and read it over with his spectacles on, to see if there was not some mistake in his understanding of it. Once convinced, however, I know well enough what his course would be. He would write me to come away at once.” And Margaret rose to prepare for her drive with eyes that had grown moist at these recollections of her far-off home. By the time that Cousin Eugenia sent to summon her, however, Miss Trevennon had recovered her composure, and when, a little later, seated by her cousin’s side, she was bowling swiftly over the smooth, hard pavements, the exhilaration of the exercise had roused her spirits to such buoyancy that small annoyances, past and future, seemed trivial enough to be ignored. CHAPTER VIII. Having assisted, humbly and admiringly, at Mrs. Gaston’s elaborate dinner-toilet that evening, Margaret followed the gracefully cloaked and hooded figure down the stairs and out to the door-steps, when she said a gay good-bye to her cousin and General Gaston, and turned and entered the house. She had been informed that Louis Gaston also had an engagement, and so she had the not unwelcome prospect of a quiet evening to herself. There were some things that she wanted leisure to think out, calmly and deliberately, and as the drawing-room looked very warm and inviting she turned toward it, and had sunk into her favorite chair before the fire, when she perceived, for the first time, that the library doors were thrown open and that Louis Gaston was sitting there at work. The sight was an irritating one. His very attitude and the set of his firm, strong shoulders, recalled vividly her discomfiture of the previous evening, and roused all the quick indignation she had felt then. She was about to withdraw at once, in the hope that he might not have perceived her entrance, when he turned suddenly, and, seeing her, rose and came forward, his face wearing its pleasantest smile, and his manner at its easiest and friendliest. “Well, Cousin Margaret,” he said, “and so they’ve left you behind! But I can assure you, you needn’t regret it. The party is an old-fogy affair, which will be long and tedious. There’s some glory to be got out of it, I dare say, but I’ll wager there isn’t much pleasure.”