"I wouldn't talk about it just now, if I were you." So saying, she drove off in her carriage, and in a few hours mother and daughter were alone together in the sweet, fresh room which was now their home. They sat down before the fire, and looked in each other's face as they only look who know that death may part, but never separate them. "Do you know where you are, mother?" Margaret asked at length. "Yes," was the surprised answer, "I am in Mrs. Grey's house, on my way to the hospital." "No, you are _in_ the hospital now, on the way to heaven!" Then they laughed and cried, and said it was a dream. So they sat, hand in hand, in the long twilight; then Margaret made tea, and cut bread and toasted it, and from the adjoining store-room brought out such delicacies as invalids sometimes will fancy when better food grows insipid, and then helped her mother into one of the soft beds, shaded the gas, and sat thinking, thinking, thinking, till the soft breathing of the sleeper admonished her that she, too, ought to be asleep. It was not till late next morning that Mrs. Grey came to inquire after her guests, and when she did so, she was in such brilliant spirits, and acted so exactly as if this were a real hospital, miles away, that there was no use in trying to prove that it was not. They had never seen her otherwise than very much in earnest; now she came out in a new character. She told stories; she read amusing extracts from a book she had with her; said she believed she would take lunch with them in case Margaret could stew some oysters on that wonderful little lamp, and made them feel so thoroughly at home that Margaret became quite gay, ran around laying the table in a way that would have put brisk Mary to the blush, and soon had a cosy little lunch prepared, which they all enjoyed. "If such times could only last!" Margaret thought. "But good times never do." And then she asked leave to exhibit Maud's rooms to her mother, and not an object of beauty escaped their notice, while Mrs. Grey enjoyed their appreciation of her darling's taste. So time slipped by; Mrs. Grey invariably keeping up Mrs. Haydon's and Margaret's spirits; making the best of everything; suggesting employments for hours when the invalid was free from pain; change of food; change of position; change of furniture; change of pictures when the eye wearied of them, and never out of patience or out of heart. At times the two women fell into sweet and grave talk that Margaret, sitting silently at her work, could not understand. Their _doctrines_ puzzled her beyond measure. She said to herself now and again: "_I_ don't think so! _I_ don't believe that!" And then would try to reconcile their happy, cheerful lives, their patience, their submission, with her own theories, failed to do it, but carped and caviled within herself, and watched for flaws in them as cats watch for mice, all ready to spring out upon them and rout or devour them.