For a few days the guest kept her room, and her own counsel, but at the end of a week she came out to the parlor, with a grave, firm face, and declared herself quite recovered. The doctor was sitting in his arm-chair, by a cozy, crackling fire, and was absently trotting a bouncing baby of ten months on his knee, while he anxiously pored over a huge medical book at his elbow; and Mrs. Gay was stitching a cambric frill in her easy chair opposite, and watching the clumsy nurse with a face of long-suffering patience. And Margaret, gliding into the room in her thread-bare black robes, and, with a gentle yet resolute face, seemed like the apparition of some tragedy queen coming upon the stage where the farce was still enacting. "Ah! Good-evening, good-evening, my dear Miss Walsingham!" cried the doctor, jumping up and dumping the baby unceremoniously into his wife's lap. "Take this chair and this footstool. Are you better?" "Thanks. I am well now," said Margaret, quietly seating herself. "And I would like to confer with you and Mr. Davenport upon my future prospects." "Never mind 'em now, Miss Margaret," said the doctor, kindly. "You are far from strong yet." "Please summon Mr. Davenport," returned she. "Stubborn as ever, my dear," grumbled he, laughing. "You're pretty quiet about it, but you will have your way." "Yes, I must have my way," said Margaret, with a sad smile. So Dr. Gay bustled off, and brought the lawyer back with him, and presented their ward, sitting alone by the fire; Mrs. Gay having sighed out her regrets that her poor health sent her to bed so early, and retired thither. "Gad! Miss Walsingham," blurted Mr. Davenport, shaking hands. "Your adventures haven't agreed well with you. Why, you're about as gaunt as my walking stick!" "I am quite well for all that," said she, somewhat eagerly, "and am, of course, anxious to arrange my future before me." The executors sat down opposite her, full of expectation. "It seems that you are aware of Captain Brand's reported death," said the lawyer, briskly: "therefore that obstacle is removed from your way, and you can hesitate no longer in taking possession of Seven-Oak Waaste. Is that what you wish to say?" "I have decided what I shall do with the property," she said, in a melancholy voice, "and I have summoned you here to announce my wishes to you." "Are they to be taken down in legal form?" sneered the lawyer. "Yes," she replied, humbly. "I wish to do some good while I have the power, with money which would only be a curse to me, and would drag my soul down to despair. I am resolved to sell Seven-Oak Waaste, and found a charitable institution with the proceeds." The executors stared aghast in her face, so cold and hopeless, but they read no faltering there. "Good heavens!" ejaculated the little doctor, in a fright, "she'll do it, you see."