"When I said he was good-tempered," rejoined poor Margaret, anxious as ever to bring her own conclusions, even about trifles, into harmony with those held by her sister, "I think he is good-tempered as a rule, but I fancy if he were to be vexed or disappointed in any way he would be persistently angry. I do not think he would forgive easily." "In other words you think him vindictive. Well, Margaret, I think you are right. And I also think him not worth talking about, I think him hateful," and Grace rose and stood before her dressing-table again. "Oh!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, "what it would be, to me, to leave this place, to go away, once again to England; though school was tiresome, it was better than this. I would give all I am worth in the world to get away. Sometimes I dream, Margaret--I dream of floating away--of hearing beautiful music and lovely voices. I am so happy! Then I wake--and I am _here_!" CHAPTER VIII. Mr. Drayton, in the meantime, took greater pains to talk to Margaret, to discover how he could please her, with no particular object in view; but she interested him, in the first place, and the fact of her life being "arranged for" made her still more interesting. Besides, paying marked attention to all she said and did enabled him to leave Grace alone. He was not a sensitive man, but Grace's impertinence was much too open not to go home to him. She despised him and showed she did so far too openly, and from passive disapprobation he began to dislike her heartily. The girls were right, his was a character that was vindictive. He was wrapped up in a thick skin of self-esteem; he was good-humoured and cheery so long as he was admired and his vanity satisfied by flattery, direct or indirect, but once his self-love was pierced or wounded it rankled, and woe to the person who had inflicted the wound. His visit was drawing to a close; he had been with Mr. Sandford for some days, and so far nothing had come of it. Grace was out of the question, and Mr. Sandford saw it. The investments he wished him to make were equally undecided; Mr. Drayton would do nothing without consulting his manager, and was waiting to hear from him. He extended his visit for two days, and he spent those two days in trying to make Margaret understand something of his feeling for her. Mr. Sandford was at his office all day and Mrs. Dorriman said nothing; and though Mr. Drayton's way of looking at Margaret and his fits of absence might have enlightened him he thought he had made all that so impossible that it never gave him any uneasiness, and in two days he would be gone. But the old story was repeated in this instance. Mr. Drayton, in hurrying home to have a word with Margaret, managed to slip, and, falling the whole length of the flight of stairs at the office, came down on the stone flags at the bottom with a bruised shoulder and a sprained leg, and of course had to remain at Renton.