"My dear, that woman ate apples! No one could endure that, you know. Ate--champed apples in my ears, and threw the cores into my grate. Positively, she smelt of apples all day long. I had to have the room fumigated when she left. A dreadful person! One of her front teeth was movable, too, and set me distracted every time she opened her mouth. Are you ever going to begin?" Margaret read two or three of her favourite poems, but with little heart in her reading, for she felt that her listener was not listening. Now and then would come an impatient sigh, or a fretful movement of the jewelled hands; once a sapphire was tossed up in the air, and fell on the floor by Margaret's feet. Only when she began the lovely "Good Night, Babette!" did Mrs. Peyton's attention seem to fix. She listened quietly, and, at the end, drew a deep breath. "You call that bright and cheerful, do you?" Mrs. Peyton murmured. "Everything looks cheerful in the morning. Good night,--"I grow so old,"--how dare you read me such a thing as that, Margaret Montfort? It is an impertinence." "Indeed," said Margaret, colouring, and now really wounded. "I do not understand you at all to-day, Mrs. Peyton. I don't seem to be able to please you, and it is time for me to go." She rose, and the lady, her mood changing again in an instant, took her two hands, and drew her close to her side. "You are my only comfort," she said. "Do you hear that? You are the only person in this whole dreadful place that I would give the half of a burnt straw to see. Remember that, when I behave too abominably. Yes, go now, for I am going to have a bad turn. Send Antonia; and come again soon--soon, do you hear, Margaret? But remember--remember that the poison-bowl waits for Sophronia!" "What--shall I give her any message?" said poor Margaret, as she bent to kiss the white forehead between the glittering waves of hair. "Give her my malediction," said Mrs. Peyton. "Tell her it is almost a consolation for lying here, to think I need not see her. Tell her anything you like. Go now! Good-bye, child! Dear little quaint, funny, prim child, good-bye!" * * * * *