Neighbour Tomlin said not a word in reply to the man's declaration. He stared at him, and turned and went back into the sitting-room where he had left the others. "Why, Pulaski, what on earth is the matter?" cried Miss Fanny, as he entered the room. "You look as if you had seen a ghost." And indeed his face was white, and there was an expression in his eyes that Nan thought was most piteous. "Go in, my dear," he said to Margaret. "The man has business with you." And then, when Margaret had gone out, he turned to Miss Fanny. "It is her father," he said. "Well, I wonder what's he up to?" remarked Miss Fanny. There was a touch of anger in her voice. "She shan't go a step away from here with such a creature as that." "She is her own mistress, sister. She is twenty years old," replied Neighbour Tomlin. "Well, she'll be very ungrateful if she leaves us," said Miss Fanny, with some emphasis. "Don't, sister; never use that word again; to me it has an ugly sound. We have had no thought of gratitude in the matter. If there is any debt in the matter, we are the debtors. We have not been at all happy in the way we have managed things. I have seen for some time that Margaret is unhappy; and we have no business to permit unhappiness to creep into this house." So said Neighbour Tomlin, and the tones of his voice seemed to issue from the fountains of grief. "Well, I am sure I have done all I could to make the poor child happy," Miss Fanny declared. "I am sure of that," said Neighbour Tomlin. "If any mistake has been made it is mine. And yet I have never had any other thought than to make Margaret happy." "I know that well enough, Pulaski," Miss Fanny assented, "and I have sometimes had an idea that you thought too much about her for your own good." "That is true," he replied. He was a merciless critic of himself in matters both great and small, and he had no concealments to make. He was open as the day, except where openness might render others unhappy or uncomfortable. "Yes, you are right," he insisted; "I have thought too much about her happiness for my own good, and now I see myself on the verge of great trouble." "If Margaret understood the situation," said Miss Fanny, "I think she would feel differently." "On the contrary, I think she understands the situation perfectly well; that is the only explanation of her troubles which she has not sought to conceal." At that moment Margaret came to the door. Her face was very pale, almost ghastly, indeed, but whatever trouble may have looked from her eyes before, they were clear now. She came into the room with a little smile hovering around her mouth. She had no eyes for any one but Pulaski Tomlin, and to him she spoke. "My father has come," she said. "He is not such a father as I would have selected; still, he is my father. I knew him the moment I opened the door. He wants me to go with him; he says he is able to provide for me. He has claims on me." "Have we none?" Miss Fanny asked.