"Oh, no!" he said; "I am glad to have to be grateful to you. I have thought so much about it. I have so wished to know you." "You have seen Mrs. Dorriman--you have seen Grace, my sister, I mean," correcting herself. "Yes; her name was in the book you had. I thought it belonged to you." "Mine is a very common name--Margaret." "I know. I think it is a beautiful name; it is my mother's name." "Your mother has been, she must have been, very unhappy." "Yes, but we only told her when I was getting better--poor mother! she cannot leave her sofa. She is carried everywhere. "How sad!" "Yes, it is terrible for her, and she has been to me father and mother, and brother and sister, since I am an only child." "It must be so sad not to have a sister," said Margaret, softly. "It must be like not having the whole of oneself." "And yet sometimes sisters do not get on," said Sir Albert, smiling, and thinking of episodes in his family history that pointed to a very different state of things. Talking still, they turned at the end of the path, the road beyond being too rough for Sir Albert in his present condition; the faithful John pushed the chair back again, accommodating its pace to the footsteps of the girl who walked beside it. What is the subtle influence that makes one feel as though to one person all may be confided, and to another as though a visible barrier rises between you? It is not only sympathy, for sympathy comes when full appreciation for a common object is discovered, when the same bias of the mind is found in each; but the appreciation must first be known. It is something more--it is apart from love between man and woman (though love on one side or another frequently follows it); it is an unknown force compelling us to frankness, filling us with a sudden liking which we cannot reason about, and do not find ourselves able to account for. Mr. Sandford, occupied by trying to mould Mr. Drayton to his wishes, prepared to carry his plans out at any sacrifice, little imagined that a sudden obstacle was rising in a quarter he never dreamed of,--like most of us, conscious of our hopes and wishes only, and never taking into account for one moment the many combinations against us. This first meeting between two drawn together in the beginning by an hour of pain and anxiety, was naturally not the last. Margaret, sometimes with the others, sometimes with Grace, at times alone, met Sir Albert Gerald every day. Acquaintance with him did her good; his larger views were often opposed to her narrower experience, and in argument her prejudices and preconceived opinions gave way. She was truthful to herself as to others, and she was forced to allow the shallowness of her ground. Upon his side there was a never-ending delight in the absolute freshness of her mind. Old ideas received a new beauty from her way of seeing them, and he was often startled by the poetry of a thought new to him.