"Let us go into the best parlor, darling," Margaret said, tenderly. "I might play to you for a little while. You always like that," and she put her arms round her mother's shoulders. Mr. Garratt took a quick step forward. "I should like to hear you play, too, Miss Margaret, if there's no objection. I'm a lover of music, as I think I've told you." He stood by the door of the best parlor and waited. Margaret turned and faced him. "Stay with Hannah. I want to have my mother to myself," she said. "Well, that's a nice handful!" Mr. Garratt remarked, as she shut the door and turned the handle with a click. "You should live in the same house with her," said Hannah, "then you'd know." "She might have left it a little bit open, at any rate; then we should have heard her." "Are you as anxious as all that?" asked Hannah, in a sarcastic voice. "Well, you see, it makes it a bit lively." "When I was at Petersfield the other day your mother asked me if I would see that the grass on your Aunt Amelia's grave was clipped. I brought in the small shears, and thought perhaps you might walk over and do it next time you came." "Damn my Aunt Amelia's grave!" he said, between his teeth. "Mr. Garratt, you are forgetting yourself!" she cried, in amazement. "She's enough to make any one forget anything," he said, nodding towards the best parlor. "You take far too much notice of her." "She doesn't return the compliment, anyhow." "And for my part," said Hannah, indignantly, "I don't understand what it is you come here for." At which Mr. Garratt faced her squarely. "Now look here, Hannah," he said, "she gives herself tantrums enough; don't you begin, for two of you in one house would be a trifle more than is needed." She sat down without a word, and closed her lips firmly. The tip of her nose became a deeper pink. Her eyelids fluttered for a minute quickly up and down. She looked forlorn--even a shade tragic. Mr. Garratt, with his heart reaching out to Margaret, obstinate and determined not to be thwarted, yet felt a touch of pity for the woman before him; perhaps unconsciously he recognized the limitations and the impossibilities of her life. "There, come along," he said, half kindly. "Come along, Hannah." The sound of her Christian name soothed her considerably. "Let's go for a little stroll; but I'm not going to hang about any one's grave. It'll be bad enough when I come to my own." XV