"He would wish to know!" said Miss Sophronia, smothering a sob into a sigh. "John Montfort would be furious if he thought I was ill-treated, and we were concealing it from him. He is a lion when once roused. Ah! I should be sorry for that woman. But forgiveness is a duty, my dear, and I forgive. See! I am myself again. Quite--" with a hysterical giggle--"quite myself! I--I will take the vinaigrette to my room with me, I think, my dear. Thank you! Dear Margaret! cherub child! how you have comforted me!" She went, and Margaret heard her sniffing along the entry; heard, and told herself she had no business to notice such things; and went back rather ruefully to her buttonholes. CHAPTER V. A NEW TYPE. "My child, I thought you were never coming again!" said Mrs. Peyton. "Do you know that it is a week since I have seen you? I have been destroyed,--positively destroyed, with solitude." "I am so sorry," said Margaret. "I could not come before; truly I could not, Mrs. Peyton. And how have you been?" Mrs. Peyton leaned back on her pillows, with a little laugh. "Who cares how I have been?" she said, lightly. "What does it matter how I have been? Tell me some news, Margaret. I must have news. You are alive, you move, and have your being; tell me something that will make me feel alive, too." Margaret looked at the lady, and thought she looked very much alive. She was a vision of rose colour, from the silk jacket fluttering with ribbons, to the pink satin that shimmered through the lace bed-spread. The rosy colour almost tinted her cheeks, which were generally the hue of warm ivory. Her hair, like crisped threads of gold, was brought down low on her forehead, hiding any lines that might have been seen there; it was crowned by a bit of cobweb lace, that seemed too slight to support the pink ribbon that held it together. The lady's hands were small, and exquisitely formed, and she wore several rings of great value; her eyes were blue and limpid, her features delicate and regular. Evidently, this had been a great beauty. To Margaret, gazing at her in honest admiration, she was still one of the most beautiful creatures that could be seen. Mrs. Peyton laughed under the girl's simple look of pleasure. "You like my new jacket?" she said. "The doctor never so much as noticed it this morning. I think I shall send him away, and get another, who has eyes in his head. You are the only person who really cares for my clothes, Margaret, and they are the only interest I have in the world." "I wish you wouldn't talk so!" said Margaret, colouring. "You don't mean it, and why will you say it?" "I do mean it!" said the beautiful lady. "I mean every word of it. There's nothing else to care for, except you, you dear little old-fashioned thing. I like you, because you are quaint and truthful. Have you seen my pink pearl? You are not half observant, that's the trouble with you, Margaret Montfort."