"Oh, miss, we will be so thankful!" cried Elizabeth. "Oh, miss, Frances and me, we'd been wishing and longing to have you speak up and take your place, if I may say so. We didn't like to put ourselves forward, and we've no orders from Mr. Montfort, except to do whatever you said; and so, when you'll say anything, Miss Margaret, we feel ever and ever so much better, Frances and me. And I'll be pleased to go all over the work with you, Miss Margaret, this very day, and show you just how I've always done it, and I think Mr. Montfort has been satisfied, and Mis' Cheriton was, Lord rest her! and you so young, and with so much else to do, as I said time and again to Frances, reading with Mr. Montfort and riding with him, and taking such an interest in the roses, as his own daughter couldn't make him happier if he had one. And of course it's nature that you haven't had no time yet to take much notice, but it makes it twice as easy for servants, Miss Margaret, where an interest is took; and I'm thankful to you, I'm sure, and so will Frances be, and you'll find her closets a pleasure to look at." Elizabeth stopped to draw breath, and Margaret looked at her in wonder and self-reproach. The grave, staid woman was all alight with pleasure and the prospect of sympathy. It came over Margaret that, comfortable and homelike as their life at Fernley was, it was not perhaps exactly thrilling. "We will be friends, Elizabeth!" she said, simply; and the two shook hands, with an earnestness that meant something. "And you are to come to me, please, whenever there is anything that needs attention, Elizabeth, and I will do my best, and ask your advice about anything I don't understand. Don't--don't we--need some new napkins, Elizabeth?" Elizabeth was eloquent as to their need of napkins. In a couple of washes more, there would be nothing but holes left to wipe their hands on. "Then I'll order some this very day," said Margaret. "Or better still, I'll go to town with Uncle John to-morrow, and get them myself. And now, Elizabeth, I am going down to see Frances, and--and perhaps--do you think she would like it if I ordered dinner, Elizabeth?" "Miss Margaret, she'd be pleased to death!" cried Elizabeth. Returning from the kitchen an hour later, a sadder and a wiser girl (for Frances's perfection seemed unattainable by ordinary mortals, even with the aid of Sapolio), Margaret heard the sound of wheels on the gravel outside. Glancing through the window of the long passage through which she was going, she saw, to her amazement, a carriage standing at the door, a carriage that had evidently come some way, for it was covered with dust. The driver was taking down a couple of trunks, and beside the carriage stood a lady, with her purse in her hand. "I shall give you two dollars!" the lady was saying, in a thin, sharp voice. "I consider that ample for the distance you have come."