"No, he knows nothing, and of course we must not tell him." "Him--you said I was not to laugh at _him_," said Grace, suddenly startled into consciousness. "Is it anything connected with Mr. Drayton?" "Yes," murmured Margaret, in a low voice, "he spoke to me this evening. He told me, Grace, that he--loved me. I was so sorry about it." "Why should you be sorry? It must not be thought of in a hurry; but we must try and be sensible about it," answered Grace. "It does not require much thought," said Margaret, surprised, almost bewildered, by her sister's quiet tone, as if the question could be weighed. "I told him at once it was quite impossible of course." "But you need not have done it in such a hurry, why not think it over?" Grace spoke as though she was disappointed. Margaret was conscious of the keenest pain she had ever known in all her life. She paused for a moment, almost breathless. Her sister, then, saw a possible conclusion widely different from hers: that she did so seemed to set them further apart in feeling than they had ever been. "You yourself have done nothing but laugh at him, we have laughed together," she said in a pained voice; "he was to be the prince, and he came, and you yourself said how middle-aged and uninteresting he was--do you forget, Grace?" "I do not forget, Margaret, darling, it is true; but if I encouraged you to laugh, and in so doing have spoiled the future for you--and for me," she added, in a lower tone. "Spoiled the future!" exclaimed Margaret, wondering, "we think differently. I am sorry, I was very sorry, because he cared so much--but no future with him is possible. Think, Grace, how annoyed we have been by his noisy laughter, by his endless jokes, by his very ways. How is it you forget?" "It is different," said Grace. "Mind, I do not say, take him; but I say you might have thought of it for a little while. What did he say, Margaret can you remember?" "I can remember some; he was very kind; and he said something about making me happy and about living where I liked in London, or anywhere, and giving me luxuries. I hated his saying all that, and I said so. I said it was like a bribe." "It was not nice," said Grace slowly, "he ought not to have said it. And yet--oh, Margaret!" she exclaimed, fervently, "think how near we have been to the realization of our dreams! To leave this hateful place--which is choking me, and making me wretched--to go away, to live in the centre of all that is worth living for!" Margaret was perfectly overwhelmed at this discovery. Grace was disappointed; she wished her to marry this man, whom she had laughed at, and turned into the bitterest ridicule, ever since she had seen him, and had seen that he was not in the least like the expected prince who was to rescue her!