The morning after the reading of the letters, Margaret had been in the White Rooms, arranging flowers in the vases, and putting little loving touches to books and cushions, as a tidy girl loves to do, whether there is need or not. The windows were open, and the orioles were singing in the great elm-tree, and the laburnum was a bower of gold. It seemed really too perfect a morning to spend in the house; Margaret thought she would take her work out into the garden, not this sunny green parlour, but the great shady garden outside, where the box swept above her head, and the whole air smelt of it, and of moss and ferns and a hundred other cool things. She passed out of the rooms, and went along a passage, and as she went she heard voices that came through an open door at one side; clear, loud voices that she could not have escaped if she would. "These table-napkins is scandalous!" said Elizabeth. "I do wish Miss Margaret would get us some new ones." "Why don't you ask her?" said Frances, the cook, bringing her flat-iron down with a thump. "The table-cloths is most worn out, too, this set. Ask her to see to some new ones. She's young, you see, and she don't think." "I've been giving her one with holes in it, right along this two weeks," said Elizabeth, "hoping she'd notice, but she don't seem to. I thought it'd be best if she found out herself when things was needed." "Ah!" said Frances, "she's a sweet young lady, but she'll never make no housekeeper. She hasn't so much as looked inside one of my closets since Mis' Cheriton went." "You wouldn't be over and above pleased if she looked much into your closets, Frances; I know that!" "Maybe I wouldn't, and maybe I would; but I'd like to have her know as there was no need of her looking. Don't tell me, Elizabeth! So long as she could walk on her feet, never a week but Mis' Cheriton would look in, and take a peep at every shelf. 'Just for the pleasure of seeing perfection, Frances,' she'd say, or something like that, her pretty way. But if there had been anything _but_ perfection, I'd have heard from her pretty quick." "I think you're hard to please, I do!" Elizabeth answered. "I think Miss Margaret is as sweet a young lady as walks the earth; so thoughtful, and afraid of giving trouble, and neat and tidy as a pin. I tell you, Mr. Montfort's well off, and so's you and me, Frances. Why, we might have had one of them other young ladies, and then where'd we have been?" "I don't know!" said Frances, significantly. "Not here, that's one sure thing." "Or Mr. Montfort might have married. Fine man as he is, it's a wonder he never has." "H'm! he's no such fool! Not but what there's them would be glad enough--" But here Margaret, with burning cheeks, fled back to the White Rooms. It could not be helped; she had to hear what they were saying about herself; she must not hear what they said about her uncle.