"Oh, thank you!" said Margaret, gratefully. "I am sure you are very kind; and if you would advise me sometimes--now that Uncle John is away--I should be most grateful. But--I ought to be able to manage them myself, it seems to me, without help. If I can only make them love me!" She looked straight at Gerald, and her dark gray eyes were very wistful in their unconscious appeal. "I'd like to see 'em not!" said the young man, straightway. "Little beggars! They couldn't help themselves!" He was about to add that he would thrash them handsomely if they did not love her, but pulled himself together, and blushed to his ears, and was only comforted by seeing out of the tail of his eye that the girl was wholly unconscious of his blushes. After all, there was some sense in freckles and sunburn. But here they were now at the gates of Fernley. "Won't you come in?" said Margaret. But Gerald, becoming once more conscious of his working-clothes, which he had entirely forgotten, excused himself. If he might come some evening soon? Yes, he might, and should. He lingered still a moment, and Margaret, after a moment's shyness, held out her hand frankly. "I am so glad to know you!" she said, simply. "Uncle John--Mr. Montfort said I was to be good to you, and I will try." "I'm sure you couldn't be anything else!" said Gerald, with fervour. "Thanks, awfully, Miss Montfort. Good-bye!" Lifting his cap, the young man turned away, feeling homesick, and yet cheerful. Passing round the corner of the house, and finding himself well out of sight of the young girl, he relieved his feelings by turning a handspring; and on coming to his feet again, encountered the awful gaze of two greenish eyes, bent upon him from an upper window of the house. "Now I've done it!" said the youth, brushing himself, and assuming all the dignity of which he was master. "Wonder who that is? Housekeeper, perhaps? Quite the Gorgon, whoever it is. Wish I didn't turn over so easily." Margaret went into the house singing, with a lighter heart than she had felt since Uncle John's letter came. Perhaps she had made a friend; at any rate, a pleasant acquaintance. What a frank, nice, gentlemanly--boy! "For he is a boy, just as he says!" she acknowledged to herself. And what kind, honest eyes he had; and how thoughtful to offer to help her with the children! Her pleasant meditations were harshly interrupted. Miss Sophronia came down-stairs, with her brown and yellow shawl drawn over her shoulders; this, Margaret had learned, was a bad sign. "Margaret, who was that young man? I saw you! There is no use in attempting to conceal anything from me, my dear. I saw you talking with a young man at the gate." "Why should I conceal it?" asked Margaret, wondering. "It was Mr. Merryweather, Cousin Sophronia. He was a schoolmate of Uncle John's,--I mean his father was."