Margaret walked home sadly enough. She loved and admired her beautiful friend, but she did not understand her, and there was much that she could not approve. It seemed absurd, she often said to herself, for a girl of her age to criticise, to venture to disapprove, of a woman old enough to be her mother, one who had travelled the world over, and knew plenty of human nature, if little of books. Yet, the thought would come again, there was no age to right and wrong; and there were things that it could not be right to think, or kind to say, at eighteen or at eighty. And her uncle did not like Mrs. Peyton. Margaret felt that, without his having ever put it into words. Still, she was so beautiful, so fascinating,--and so kind to her! Perhaps, unconsciously, Margaret did miss a good deal the two young cousins who had been with her during her first year at Fernley; surely, and every hour, she missed her Aunt Faith, whose tenderness had been that of the mother she had never known. She was in no haste to go home; there was still an hour before Uncle John would come. There was little peace at home in these days, but a prying eye, and a tongue that was seldom still save in sleep. She had left Elizabeth in tears to-day, her precious linen having been pulled over, and all the creases changed because they ran the wrong way. In vain Margaret had reminded her of the heroine of the story she had liked so much, the angelic Elizabeth of Hungary. "It don't make much difference, Miss Margaret!" Elizabeth said. "I am no saint, miss, and all the roses in the world wouldn't make my table-cloths look fit to go on, now." Frances was "neither to hold or to bind;" even the two young girls whom the elder women had in training were tossing their heads and muttering over their brasses and their saucepans. The apple of discord seemed to be rolling all about the once peaceful rooms of Fernley House. "I'll go home through the woods," said Margaret, "and see if they have begun work on the bog yet." It was lovely in the woods. Margaret thought there could be no such woods in the world as these of Fernley. The pines were straight and tall, and there was little or no undergrowth; just clear, fragrant stretches of brown needles, where one could lie at length and look up into the whispering green, and watch the birds and squirrels. There was moss here and there; here and there, too, a bed of pale green ferns, delicate and plumy; but most of it was the soft red-brown carpet that Margaret loved better even than ferns. She walked slowly along, drinking in beauty and rest at every step. If she could only bring the sick lady out here, she thought, to breathe this life-giving air! Surely she would be better! She did not look ill enough to stay always in bed. They must try to bring it about.