“And now, Margery, come as soon as you can. And don’t be silly about my buying the cottage and business for you. It is only a little bit of payment on the big sum I owe you for that sacrifice you were ready to make for me. How well I remember that day, and how plainly I can see you now, as you went up to the master, with your face as white as paper, and your eyes so pitiful and appealing as they looked at me, and yet so full of love. And I, the coward, shut my eyes, and clenched my fists, and said to myself just as fast as I could, ‘Nasty beast! nasty beast!’ till the first blow fell, which hurt me more than it did you, for it cut right into my conscience, and there has been a little smart there ever since, while your dear hand is just as white and fair as if that vile old man’s ferrule had never reddened and wounded it. Splendid old Margery! I want to hug you this minute! “And—oh, Margie, don’t think I have forgotten papa, because I have not said more of him; for I haven’t, and there is a thought of him and a little moan in my heart for him all the time. No matter what I am doing, or how gay I seem, I never forget that he is dead, and that there is nobody to love me now but you, who seem so near to me, because you knew of the old life at home now gone forever. Answer at once, and say when I may expect you.” To this letter Margery replied within a few days, thanking Queenie for her generous interest, but saying she could not accept so much from her; she should come to Merrivale with her mother as soon as they could arrange matters where they were, but she should insist upon paying rent for the cottage, and also upon paying for the business. “I can do that in a short time,” she wrote, “if I have work, and I shall be happier to be independent even of you, my darling. Besides I do not think the Rossiters and Fergusons would like you to do so much for a stranger. I am nothing to them, you know, except their dressmaker—” “I think her a very sensible girl. I could not respect her, if she were willing to receive so much from you,” Mr. Beresford said when Queenie read him Margery’s letter; whereupon Queenie flew into a passion, and said he did not understand—did not appreciate the nature of the friendship between herself and Margery; adding that she should never tell Margery how much she paid her Aunt Lydia, and that she would never take any rent and she should furnish the house herself.