"Margaret!" gasped Jane, "what can have come to you? You are completely changed; you--you seem to speak no longer as a lady." "Then why do you provoke me, Jane? Is it high treason to take a gentleman's arm, my brother being with me?" "It is not right to do it in secret, Margaret. If you go out ostensibly to walk with Robert----" "Jane, I will not listen," Margaret said, with flashing eyes. "Because you are Mrs. Halliburton, you assume a right to lecture me. I have committed no grievous wrong. When I do commit it, you may take your turn then." "Oh, Margaret! why will you misjudge me?" asked Jane, her voice full of pain. "I speak to you in love, not in anger; I would not speak at all but for your good. If the Chevasneys were to hear of this, they might think you an unsuitable mistress for their children." "Compose yourself," said Margaret, scoffingly. Never had she shown such a temper, so undesirable a disposition, as on this night; and Jane might well look at her in amazement, and hint that she was "changed." "I shall be found sufficiently suitable by the Chevasney family--when I consent to enter it." Her tone was strangely significant, and Jane Halliburton's heart beat. "What do you imply, Margaret?" she inquired. "You appear to have some peculiar meaning." Margaret, who had been standing before the glass all this time twisting her hair round her fingers, turned and looked her sister full in the face. "Jane, I'll tell you, if you will undertake to make things straight for me with mamma. I am not going to the Chevasneys--or anywhere else--as governess." "Yes,"--said Jane faintly, for she had a presentiment of what was coming. "I am going to be married instead." "Oh, Margaret!" "There is nothing to groan about," retorted Margaret. "Mr. Murray is coming to speak to mamma to-morrow, and if any of you have anything to say against him, you can say it to his face. He is a very respectable man, and has a good income; where's the objection to him?" Jane could not say. Personally, she did not very much like Mr. Murray; and certain fond visions had pictured a higher destiny for handsome, accomplished Margaret. "I hope and trust you will be happy, if you do marry him, Margaret!" was all she said. "I hope I shall. I must take my chance of that, as others do. Jane, I beg your pardon for my crossness, but you put me out of temper." As others do. Ay! it was all a lottery. And Margaret Tait entered upon her hastily-chosen married life, knowing that it was so. CHAPTER VI. IN SAVILE-ROW.