Meanwhile matters had not improved at Woodside Farm. A fierce jealousy was raging in Hannah's virgin heart; she found it difficult even to keep her hands off Margaret. "I should like to box your ears and lock you up in your room," she remarked, spitefully, when she could no longer control herself. "Hannah, for shame!" Mrs. Vincent said, but even her efforts to keep the peace seemed somewhat futile. "It's a pity you didn't go to Australia with your father," Hannah went on. "You are only in the way here." "Oh, if he had but taken me!" Margaret answered, fervently. "Perhaps he didn't want you. We've only his word for it there is this brother in Australia--and what is that worth, I should like to know?" Mrs. Vincent looked up quickly from her seat in the porch. "I'll have you speak with respect of the man who is my husband," she said, gently. "And shame to you, mother, that he is. He has undermined your faith, and made you forget your first husband's child." "Hannah, you will be silent," Mrs. Vincent answered, with some of her old dignity. "We have each kept to our own way of thinking, and neither has meddled with the other. And I have never forgotten your father, nor what was due to him; but one has to make the best of life, and I was a young woman when he died." Something in her voice touched Hannah. "I know that, mother," she said, "and I've tried to be a good daughter to you, and if sometimes I've thought I didn't get my share of what you felt, why it's only natural that I should complain. What's come between us and is trying to come between me and what is due to me, is the artfulness that has got no principle to build upon." "If I could only get away! If Mrs. Lakeman would ask me to stay with her, or if only I were like Miss Hunstan, and could act and live by myself till father comes back," Margaret said to herself, till the idea took deeper and deeper hold upon her.