He lost time by his haste, for he had to pause and get command of himself, and calm down, before he could venture to go and knock at the shabby little green door. Margaret was seated on the end of the little sofa, which was placed beside the fire. This, he said to himself, no doubt was the reason why he had not seen her at the window. She had her work-basket on the table, and was sewing, with her little girl seated on a stool at her feet. The little girl was about seven, very like her mother, seated in the same attitude, and bending her baby brows over a stocking which she was knitting. Margaret was very plainly, alas! she herself felt, much too plainly-dressed, in a dark gown of no particular colour, with nothing whatever to relieve it except a little white collar; her dark hair, which she also lamented over as quite unlike and incapable of being coaxed into, the fashionable colour of hair, was done up simply enough, piled high up upon her head. She had not even a ribbon to lend her a little colour. And she was not wise enough to know that chance had befriended her, and that her beautiful pale face looked better in this dusky colourless setting, in which there was no gleam or reflection to catch the eye, than it would have done in the most splendid attire. She raised her eyes when the door opened and rose up, her tall figure, with a slight wavering stoop, looking more and more like a flexile branch or tall drooping flower. She put out her hand quite simply, as if he had been an old friend, and looked no surprise, nor seemed to require any explanation of his visit, but seated herself again and resumed her work. So did the child, who had lifted its violet eyes also to look at him, and now bent them again on her knitting. Harry thought he had never seen anything so lovely as this group, the child a softened repetition of the mother--in the subdued greenish atmosphere with winter outside, and the still warmth within. “I came from my aunt with this note,” said Harry, embarrassed. She looked up again as he spoke, and this way she had of looking at him only now and then gave a curious particularity to her glance. He thought, poor fellow, that his very tone must be suspicious, that her eyes went through and through him, and that she had found him out. “I mean,” he added, somewhat tremulously, “that I was very glad of--of the chance of bringing Lady Mary’s note; and asking you how you liked the place.” “You are very kind to come,” said Margaret in her soft voice, taking the note. “It’s a little lonely, knowing nobody--and a visit is very pleasant.”